The ruined world below and the ruined world above

I’d long wanted to see the ruins at Mesa Verde, and on September 26th I finally got my wish. This split-level picture shows in its lower third a group of cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park. Looming over those dwellings and cutting across the middle of the photograph are the massive layers of rock that served as protection for the people who lived beneath them. Blanketing the uppermost layer of rock are the much more recent ruins of a forest destroyed by fire, of which there have been half a dozen in the past 15 years alone.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman