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