Hawk Ranch, Lobos Mountain, Taos

In 1923, two-year old Walton Hawk sat on Lawrence’s lap, pulling on his red beard; the two regarded each other keenly. Both possessed the unfiltered power of observation most often found only in young children. Today at 91, Walton resides in a nursing home in Albuquerque.  Lawrence’s ashes reside in a chapel at the top of Lobo Mountain.

On Wednesday, Bill, the Friends of D.H. Lawrence president, arranged for a walk to the abandoned Hawk Ranch where the Lawrences spent the winters of ’22 and ’23.  Hiking up the mountain, across a vast open meadow of ruby-colored ice plant and cactus and a dry man-made reservoir, we came to the forest that led to the blood red cliffs and Lobo canyon beyond. Golden aspens flowed down the mountain sides like honey; caps of snow sat on the Picuris peaks in the distance.  Warned of mountain lions and bears, the only lion we encountered was in Lawrence’s poem which Bill brought along to read at the base of the cliffs.

Lawrence sorrowfully encountered a golden mountain lion in a trap—already dead—and turned his attention outward:

“Instead, I look out.
 And out to the dim of the desert,

like a dream, never real;

To the snow of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains,

the ice of the mountains of Picoris,

And near across at the opposite steep of snow,

green trees motionless standing in snow, like a Christmas toy.” (excerpt from “Mountain Lion” by Lawrence)

There was room for both of them in this world, he sadly noted.

Next: the official Lawrence Ranch further up the mountain

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Friday, October 14th, 2011 at 8:10 am and is filed under Family, Fiction, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.