Rio Grande Swimming Hole, July 12th, 2007, outside of Taos, New Mexico, at a Writing Retreat with Natalie Goldberg almost one year ago to the day, all photos © 2007-2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
cliffs rise, bodies howl
floating down the Rio Grande
swimming in July
View From The Swimming Hole, Toward The Bridge, Leaving The Swimming Hole, From The Bridge, July 12th, 2007, all photos © 2007-2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
The Rio Grande is 1,885 miles long, the third longest river system in the United States. This is for all of our writing friends in Taos this week, diving into her river wildness — screaming, floating, swimming, wading — walking in the mist, getting wet.
-posted on red Ravine, Friday, July 11th, 2008
-related to post, haiku (one-a-day)
You guys are making me feel that I want to go on a writing retreat- swimming holes would be an optional though wonderful extra!
LikeLike
lirone, do it! 8)
LikeLike
I liked the haiku and the images..especially “Leaving The Swimming Hole” I would think it would be a difficult place to leave!
Thank you for sharing this.
LikeLike
The Rio Grande is a beloved river to me, as you know, QM, and your own love for it endears you even more to me.
LikeLike
I wrote a poem about the Rio Grande several years ago, while I was on an extended camping trip through the National Parks of Texas – in AUGUST! It went pretty much like this…
Rio Grande
I have seen the Atlantic and Pacific
and now I gaze across the Rio Grande
where Mexico is just a breath away.
The Atlantic tides wash New York City.
The Pacific surf erodes Los Angeles –
both a far cry from the Rio Grande.
Only twenty feet wide – this brown, sluggish water,
where wild boars rut in detritus on its banks,
where wilderness scent catches in my throat,
where I feel as though I’ve taken a hot shower
without benefit of soap or water.
Of course it was 110 degrees in the shade and we were in the low lands. Once we hit the mountains and found the high desert, I became much more in love with the wilds of Texas – I adored the desert. But that murky river water – hmmm!
LikeLike
Wow, August in south Texas. Hot, indeed. I wish Mimbres Man could see this poem. He’s the only other person I know who’s braved the “end” of the Rio Grande in severe heat.
Also, the wild boars, I wonder if those are javelinas. They’re found in southern NM and Texas. Interesting looking animals.
Isn’t it amazing how it is so brown? It gets even muddier if it’s been raining.
Thanks for sharing your poem, Bo. I really loved reading it.
LikeLike
Yes, ybonesy. Javelinas. Ugly cusses, by any name. I remember being a little afraid of them, though they pretty much ignored us. I’m more accustomed to seeing a bear in the woods than a boar doing whatever it is they do. Lots of dust, though, wherever they were.
LikeLike
Suz, it was hard to leave. I think this might have been the 3rd time I had done this when I was in New Mexico. And we stayed there quite a while. The two times I swam, we walked up the trail side, jumped in the Rio Grande, floated down toward the bridge, walked up the trail side and did it all over again. It was so refreshing. I think two of the times I was there, we were still in silence, so the water was a huge wake up to the body!
I remember the first time, I swung my towel back over my shoulders close to the trail and then felt a scratching against my back — it had come back full of cactus needles from a huge cactus right behind me. I didn’t get those things out of that beach towel for a long, long time to come!
LikeLike
ybonesy, that’s a very sweet thing to say. Thank you! I do love rivers and seek them out wherever I go. I was talking about the Mississippi with some friends last Saturday night. We were walking over her and talking about how dark, sometimes black her waters are. Very different than the Rio Grande; whenever I’ve seen her, she has been brown and muddy. Then a lot of the rivers I’ve seen in Montana are so clear and free flowing from the rush down the mountains. Rivers all have such different personalities.
Bo, thank you for dropping your Rio Grande poem in here. What a pleasure to read it! I had the same reaction as ybonesy — Texas in August? But then who am I to talk — I’m going to be in southern Georgia in mid and late July. 8)
I have never seen a wild boar or javelina (I really like that word, javelina). That would be something to run into in the wild. Are they aggressive? The strangest thing (to me) were the armadillos I saw running wild in Arkansas, along with the wild turkeys. You just don’t see armadillos up here!
LikeLike
QM and ybonesy – When you have 3 kids and have promised to take them to as many National Parks as you can, and a trip to Texas is researched and planned, and then Dad’s vacation gets pushed from Spring Break to August…hmmm! It’s Texas in August!
And the weather was wild. When we had already moved from Big Bend and the Rio Grande to Guadeloupe Mountains NP, we were camped on the edge of a huge mountain canyon. I wandered to the park ranger’s office and asked if there were ever any flash floods. The guy – well-seasoned, I’d say – nearly fell off his chair laughing. “None I seen in the last 20 years,” he snickered. Yes, he really did SNICKER!
Then there was a huge thunderstorm – and guess what. Flash floods. Such wild weather – thunder, crashing boulders bouncing down with the rushing waters, my 17 yo grabbed a kid from near the edge as a boulder came a little too close. Yikes!
BTW, the ranger apologized to me the next morning, and couldn’t seem to take his eyes off some mysterious spot on the floor while he spoke to me! 🙂
As for javelinas, they aren’t aggressive, just the opposite I think. But we kept our distance because they were rather creepy and we didn’t know their habits. I think the nicest thing about a javelina is probably its lovely sounding name.
LikeLike
Bo, amazing story about the flash flood. They can be scary. I was in one once in Arches National Park. There was a quick thunderstorm and the water just gushed down through our campsite and flooded it. My tent was underwater and it took us a while to dry out. I’d never experienced anything like that before. It would be really scary with kids! Things can change so quickly out in the elements. Thanks for sharing your stories. I really enjoy them!
LikeLike
[…] read, I took notice. She was gentle and deep. Later, when we swam in the brown water of the Rio Grande, I saw she was like me. Some people refused to get in — the day was overcast and the water muddy […]
LikeLike
[…] to all the writers who show up to sit together, walk the morada, swim in the Rio Grande, rise for morning meditation. Who keep coming back. Who show up for each other through joy and […]
LikeLike
[…] read, I took notice. She was gentle and deep. Later, when we swam in the brown water of the Rio Grande, I saw she was like me. Some people refused to get in — the day was overcast and the water muddy […]
LikeLike