Page 73 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue2

To Witness

By Gillian Goslinga

Fragility

I am driving along a scenic road in Sedona County, Arizona, its famed red rocks flanking the winding

road on either side and in the distance. A sign announces the beauty ahead, inviting drivers to raise

their eyes above the road to look about. Wisps of yellow grass brighten the slopes up to the awesome

rock formations around me, the yellow broken by dark green junipers and pines, fanciful clusters of

purple cacti, and rich deep ochre earth. I am enchanted.

Around a curve, the mangled corpse of a hare on the road makes me swerve. Around another curve,

further down, another corpse, a coyote this time, its skull crushed and jaw lying flat on the pavement,

its body contorted by impact, like a gruesome trophy carpet. I swerve again, feeling a pang in my belly.

I count a third little nondescript creature crushed further down these five miles of scenic views.

But what a rush the landscape gives! All I have to do is raise my eyes to the horizon to be enchanted

again. I imagine that other drivers feel this same hypnotic elation too, eyes and hearts raised beyond

our windshields to the sublime on this God-­‐given corner of Mother Earth. The corpses of the animals

who didn’t make it across the road fast enough jar these good feelings, if you see them at all. Maybe

you swerve to avoid crushing the bodies a second time, as I just did, thinking yourself lucky that it

wasn’t you that crushed them in the first place. If you have a heart, you feel a pang of pity.

On mornings like this, when one corpse after another greets me on the tarmac, I ache to do ceremony

for these fellow creatures whom we call, with sick humor, “road kill.” I have many times imagined

erecting little crosses along the roads, bright with flowers and the recognition of death, as is done for

human victims of accidents, who incidentally are never called “road kill.” I always say a prayer for

their souls’ safe journey home. But are prayers enough?

Next day, same hour, same scenic stretch.

75