On the Ridge
2 Minutes Read Time
Associate Editor Kate Jayroe: Katz’s crisp prose takes us up, up, and into the naturalistically surreal. As we ascend and then descend, quiet revelations about belonging and home come to the forefront.
Listen to Katz read her miCRo:
On the Ridge
We went walking in the ranchlands looking for a petrified log. Let our feet fall heavy in the sagebrush to ward off rattlesnakes. Helped each other over the barbed cattle fence. Panted up the hill, ate apples at the summit. Sat on the log covered in orange lichen. A storm hung over the mountains. You pointed: pink cumulus on the horizon like an omen of apocalypse. Sheep like fallen clouds on the hills.
I was far from home. Even the places I loved I left. Below, a man moved on horseback across the naked hills. The horse’s gallop urgent. We threw our apple cores into the brush and descended. On the ridge dead lambs were wedged between crevices of red rock. Lost, you said. Went too far. Their soft backs round like moss-covered stones. Near the end of the trail the man on horseback rode closer and closer. Crossed our path in a wide white hat, a living lamb in his saddle. Passed us without stopping. You said: He’s bringing her home. Back to the herd. I watched without speaking. Wondered where that lamb was really going. Wondered what waited for it there.
