Sunday, January 5, 2014

Tanque Verde

watercolor by Ross Lewallen

This saguaro seems to be dancing. They do dance, you know. It is the wind, the clear air, the rain smell from far off, but most of all it's the desert. As in the subtropics, the low desert is a player in the mood of the observer. You can't take the desert out of the sand nor the sand out of the desert. They belong together, as the sea on this island where we live abides in the bode of a shell. Plant the shell on dry ground and it will sing of the sea.

I still carry the mystery of Tanque Verde in my bones.

Impolite to talk
when wind burns
and saguaros dance
Sitting two of us
high over desert floor
looking down on level
plain where mule deer
browse among thorns

Gerald Hausman




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