Inspired by She Waits for Eternity by Laura Barrow
Patrick Curran
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The rising sun cast dark shadows to the east of Spider Rock, as Spider Lass, slipped in hard, and fast. “Mattie” Franklin the Liberator, AKA, Spider Lass donned her rock climbing rack at the base of the canyon floor, the Tsegi. She, a NavahoWarrior-Princess was chosen by the Tribe to break the curse of Spider Man. Only then could the Eternal Tribe pass freely back to Earth and bring peace and everlasting life – iiná doo ninít’i’ii She loaded her climbing rack for the nine pitch, eight hundred foot, class five climb. Hands and feet at first, then wide stem moves, then free climbing – crimping, jamming, clinging…then she’d build an anchor with cams, slings and hooks.
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Sure Mattie could free solo, but this was a major assault of Spider Rock to liberate the Twin Towers. She needed to build rock climbing anchors and hang bivey gear to conquer her father, Spider-King-the-Chauvinist. Senile and off his meds, he had become a mad-rapping misogynist casting his deadly webs at the top of the towers. Climbing anchors were also needed to launch Mattie’s web shooter. 8 | EKPHRASIS 2022
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To be fair, Mattie was not a card-carrying misandrist (hater of men) yet, she did not refer to her father as Poppa-Dearest... she hoped to change his mind and free her mother, Spider Woman from bondage. When Mattie was a young Navaho Princess, her mother had taught her to weave cotton into cloth, and to weave beauty into life and spread the “Beauty Way” – the need for balance among the mind, body and spirit. In beauty I walk with beauty before me I walk with beauty behind me I walk With beauty above me I walk with beauty around me I walk, it has become beauty again.4 *** Sure Mattie was a still girl, but an ardent girl on a mission. Hers was a rite of passage from girl to woman. Hell no, she would not wait for eternity to right the wrongs of the fallen world. She would seize the day. From the summit of Spider Rock, she would weave a lifeline to the heavens – so the “beauty way” could return. She bowed her head and took an oath to the Navaho Nation, “Naabeehó Bináhásdzo”, then gathered her courage for the climb. She alone took responsibility for the liberation–no room for victims on Spider Rock.
