I was sitting on a flat rock wedged among a pile of boulders forty feet above the Colorado River. The roar of rapids and the sharp call of a bird seemed to protest my presence. I realized I was a stranger in the Canyon.
To my right a cascade of water fell several hundred feet into a cavern from a fracture high in the Canyon wall. Its hollow roaring was muffled by a mass of boulders and lush greenery through which the water rushed past me to the river.
I had been standing on the edge of the pool at the bottom of the falls, being sprayed by a fine mist. Unlike most falls, the water drops in great filigreed sheets, which are caught in sharp cool gusts that blow out the cavern's mouth. They were so strong I had to brace myself against their force. I climbed down to my perch through the stream and lacy tamarisk, and among the boulders, which had fallen from the canyon wall over thousands and millions of years.
Is all this magnificence the work of an overpowering indifferent nature, I asked? Part of me wanted to assign a creator, a God, but I couldn't bring myself to do so. Why? For what purpose? Of course, science wasn't any help, and I haven't found priests and other religious functionaries much help.
But it was wonderful, a grandeur, a mystery that I felt blessed to experience. Soon, it was time to leave. Our raft was ready.
The phoebe still sang. Could it have been telling me it had the answer?

Basil J. F. Mott