PIRA

PIRA

Precision Impact Range Area
Edwards  Air  Force  Base,  California

Click here and watch a video

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Man-made monsters roar on weekdays over PIRA,
Laser fires crisscross in a web-like pattern,
Thud, bump, thump...
Concrete bombs on target fell,
Clouds of dust,
Fuel smell,
Noise like hell,
Devil's happy place on Earth.

Week is gone, weekend came,
Man-made monsters hide in caves,
Fuel smell, clouds of dust, noise like hell
Disappear for two days.
Veil of silence blankets place -
PIRA's virtue has returned!

For a moment born anew
Sunday's crack of dawn
Takes one back in time
To origin days,
To the centuries long gone-by.
It won't last, however...
Man-made monsters won't be shy,
To return and roam the sky.
Hence before they do,
Climb up hill,
Sit on ridge, let your senses to enjoy
Sacred Nature Shrine of God.

Can you sense that soundless echo of primeval still?
It is PIRA's yesterday!
Can you hear chirping, howling, rustling, hissing, humming...?
It is Nature's morning prayer!
Can you smell that incense weaving into air?
It is creosote aroma
Filling up the valley's space...
Mass in progress...
Therefore, take a breath and sing!
Cantillate to your habitat with grace!

Can you see those carpets
Made of white and yellow petals
Flicker myriad tiny rainbows?
Don't be shy,
Go ahead, walk them over!
Cleansing dewdrops
Like communion wine
Will remove all fears,
Will unite you with the Highest.

When you're ready, look above the shrub,
To the beauty in angelic haze
That prevents descending blue
Softly fall onto green shades' lavish sea.
Feed your eyes with a view
Of the greatest altar ever built,
Whose grandeur in an opalescent gray
Heavy-steps on green
And grins a true delight on blue.
Not a novel concept
For the Shrine of Sacred Nature,
But how fresh despite eternal form?!
Its existence validated
By so many souls experience,
By happiness they would find
On the dunes and playas,
And while chasing rabbits
Through the desert scrub,
And while playing, cooking,
Making arrow shafts,
Or while dancing by the fires,
Telling stories for good night.

Can you feel it?
Crowd of spirits in a queue,
Circles round and round by you.
Their thousand-years old essence
Manifesting in obsidian smoky blade,
In a scatter of chert flakes,
And a heart-like point,
Made of rhyolite burgundy rock;
In a well-worn mano
Or metate concave slab,
In a fading rock-art,
And a broken pestle,
That's been resting at the boulder's foot.

Other ghosts are lining up for the celebration, too...
By the old capped well,
And by entrance to the remnants
Of what seems to have been once
Someone's tiny house;
And by shallow mineshaft,
Or tin scatter,
Or a cairn...

They come back to PIRA every Sunday
With a claim for a moment of atonement
From the forces responsible for the monsters,
Man-made monsters,
That will spoil the balance of the place again.

But it will be quite a while
Before they do...
Sun will reach its zenith point
In an hour, maybe two...
Thus, take pleasure of each second that remains;
Cross that fallen boundary marker,
Where weathered wooden posts
Fence off inside past
From outside present.
Then let satin softness
Of tamarisk purple pink
That caresses old adobe wall
To adorn your mood,
While you listen and absorb
PIRA's ancient tale,
While you listen to the time ticking away, away...

(PIRA, Sunday morning, April 1995)