STONE TIME
Southern Utah: A Portrait and a Meditation
0940666537
By T.H. Watkins
53 duotone photographs by the author, 104 pages, 10 x 12, CLPSTONE (cloth) $34.95

Renowned wilderness writer T. H. Watkins offers a portrait of remote areas of the fragile and beautiful canyonlands of Utah, and with it an impassioned plea: he urges that steps be taken for the permanent preservation of these precious wildlands, which are already threatened with ecological destruction and may soon be lost to us forever.

Watkins' inspired book offers some of the finest photographs of the canyonlands ever produced and a poetic text that speaks of the many meditative hours the writer spent in this beloved region. He gives us a panorama of majestic mountains, buttes, and mesas; forest views of pinon and juniper and tall mountain sage; and intimate glimpses of rivers weaving magically through redrock slits in the earth. Through Watkins's exquisite visual and literary images shines his deep commitment to saving treasured wildlands that were old when humankind was "yet ungraced by the breath of Creation."

EXCERPT:

Find a hidden canyon twisting in the sun. Walk into its coils and climb until only the eyes of lizards are left to watch your silent explorations. Rest against the rock. Put out a hand and push against the fabric of the stone until it hurts. Feel it then: feel the weight of time.