Looking for the Language of Red    • Book cover of "Red: Passion
and Patience in the Desert"   Even in its hardcover form, Terry
Tempest Williams' new book, Red: Passion and Patience in the
Desert, is small enough to fit easily into your backpack, the
one you might carry if you happened to be taking a trip through,
say, the redrock country of southern Utah. The book's size is no
accident. A collection of essays, topo-maps, newspaper
clippings, journal entries, and congressional testimony, Red is
like a pocket guide for the wilderness activist with a poetic
bent. It's a compelling meditation on the burnished deserts of
Utah, where Williams lives and writes. Beyond that, it's a
useful resource. The appendix includes the text of the "Redrock
Wilderness Act of 2001," and phone numbers for such conservation
groups as Great Old Broads for Wilderness.  Despite the hue of
the book's title, Williams' prose in Red can tend towards the
purple. But what makes the book so satisfying is that as
Williams juxtaposes her musi