The canyonlands of southern Utah and Colorado are poet Kate Lassman's holy place. She travelled there with her park ranger husband in 2012, and again in 2023, for a journey both physical and spiritual: 17 days of driving and hiking in the famous parks: Rocky Mountain and Canyonlands National Parks, Colorado National Monument, Bryce Canyon, Zion, and Arches National Parks, Natural Bridges National Monument, and Kodachrome Basin State Park. The landscapes of those extraordinary sites, the vivid colors of both the majestic rock formations and the sky, the persevering life that thrives in the supposedly empty desert, and the profound quiet that fills the light, dry air filled her with a peaceful sense of timelessness perfect for contemplation, meditation, or prayer.
Both were annular eclipses, which means the moon would cover the sun almost completely, except for a thin "ring of fire" around the sun's circumference. My husband and I watched the 2012 eclipse from the rim of Bryce Canyon at Sunset Point, and the 2023 eclipse from near Chimney Rock at Kodachrome Basin State Park. The dimming light as totality approached was eerily striking. At the moment of totality came a gilded royal blue twilight with the eclipsed sun looking ethereal and surreal. Then the light slowly returned, and the world continued.
How to Cross the Desert is the story of Lassman's desert journey in poetry. Some of the poems camequickly, like "Along Weeping Rock Trail" and "Arch Walker"; others took time and multiple revisions. Among those are"Fire at Bryce Canyon" and "Strata." They contain questions about life that she didn't realize she had brought with me to the canyonlands, and the epiphanies she found there - which are different from answers, which she did not find.
Journeys are about seeking, discovering, and learning. In this book she shares her journey with you because she became so enchanted with the canyonlands, and because she hopes the epiphanies she returned with might be of value to you in your journey.
Kate Lassman is a poet, college writing tutor, and aspiring mystery novelist. She grew up in a suburb of Denver, Colorado that at the time was called Englewood, but has since been renamed Centennial. She holds a bachelor's degree in English and Biology from Grove City College and an MFA in poetry from George Mason University. Her poems have appeared in a number of magazines and in the anthology Pax: An Anthology of Southern Maryland Poetry, published by The Wineberry Press in 2019. Her first book, Dawn Anyway, was published by New Bay Books in 2022. She is a member of the Maryland Writers' Association and the Poets and Pies Poetry Circle. She is married to historian and park ranger David Lassman. Together they love traveling, visiting antique malls and used book stores, and playing Scrabble. After moving to Maryland, they adopted rescue cats Joy, Grace, and Zany, thereby happily becoming the neighborhood's crazy cat people.
