Poems by Josh Wennergren

Chasing Lizards

by Josh Wennergren

From Canary Summer 2018

Josh lives at the feet of the Wasatch mountains near City Creek of the Jordan Watershed.

Normally the color of the Great Basin sky is deep sapphire blue. Sharp light hardens canyon-rim shadows and bolsters crag lines that shatter the red rock. But today, an hour outside Moab, an eerie white sun drifts over a layer of high smoke, washing out the day with flat grey light. Gusts of cold wind splash off rusted cliffs, and further off comes the sound of raven-croaks plotting a lonely course across the sky. In this moment is a touch of gloom. It happens sometimes—just the right point of afternoon, the aimless light, a night of lousy sleep—these factors gather at once, spinning a pang of sadness through me. With that come all the nagging, melancholy thoughts of our time: How will we fix this world? Do we even have democracy anymore? Will hate win? Will my generation’s children know what a snow day is?

But then, pausing my untethered mind, is a tiny lizard crossing the trail. It scurries by my feet and mounts a rocky shelf where it stops, presses its chest into the air, then slips away. I snap back into the present moment where I find myself resisting a usually-dormant instinct to chase. Just as I am about to bolt after the creature, I think: It would be silly for a thirty-year old guy to go chasing a lizard. If other hikers passed by, it would probably weird them out. But I’m not sure I care.

Twenty years ago I was a ten-year-old boy stalking lizards over these same rocky buttes. Their soft movements rolled me over boulders of shadow and sun, ushered me to secret nooks. I followed their winding paths through the desert, up side-canyons to the tops of mesas, and into Juniper groves —patiently tracking one on and on until it dipped into a crack or burrowed under foliage. Then I would walk in silence until another lizard shimmered in my periphery, steering me deeper into the land.

I spent hours rapt by lizards, so intent I’m surprised I never got lost or took a bad fall. I was obsessed, once electing to spend an entire morning away from my scout troop just to chase lizards alone. If I caught one I would study it—marveling at its pulsing turquoise throat, inspecting the little holes on the sides of its head, gently holding its bent, flimsy toes in my fingers. Then I would set it down, step back, and watch it sidle off to cover.

On one trip I flipped over a stone near our family’s campsite, accidently killing a lizard that was hiding underneath. I felt sick. The reptile squirmed for a second, then stiffened in the dry air. Later it turned a vibrant hue of tropical green that nearly glowed. Filled with misgiving, and wishing somehow I had only stunned the animal, I checked on the delicate corpse all day. No, it was very dead. The next morning the body was gone and the sand where it had laid was smooth and trackless. I was lump-throated for the rest of the weekend, dwelling on the mystery of what night-haunting creature might have snatched it up.

Lizards meant everything to me.

But as I grew up, other things took priority. Family trips to the desert became harder to place into our schedules. In junior high and high school, lizards did not exactly fall into the ‘cool’ category. College trips to the red rocks were about climbing, then beer and camp fires. Life, as it goes, bustled with too many obligations and expectations, too many reasons to keep on society’s path. I have never stopped visiting the wild, but it has been too long since a darting lizard has coaxed me into its sparse, open realm.

Now as an adult, I face big questions. We all do. Millennials are grasping the reins of a broken world, desperate for fresh ideas, perspectives, and leaders. We are inheriting an existential mess that no other generation has confronted. Our problems are urgent, yet somehow, amidst these looming trials, chasing a lizard makes perfect sense to me. We cannot keep swiping past the small moments—the little flashes of wonder scuttling across the sand. We cannot forget to peel back the corners of this universe, to spill over hidden rocks, to wander far off the prescribed trail where the crunch of one’s own footsteps stifles the whirling belt of sensational news.

Ok, I tell myself, I’ll follow the next one. But, in character with this odd day, no other lizards cross my path. It is getting late, and probably too cold. The sun is leaving. The lizards have likely settled for the dark, and I too head back for camp.

But there is comfort at night as I lie in my bag, knowing they are still out there.