Santa Cruz River at Saint Mary's Bridge circa 1930
Thoughts over coffee on a midweek-day-dawning
Not long ago I hiked up A Mountain. Standing atop that old rounded place with its mute green denizens – the sturdy, tall saguaros – I looked across the sea of houses floating on the valley floor. Beyond them the towering blue Catalina Mts. and rocky Rincon’s rimmed the valley, and in the south I could see the Santa Rita Mts. through a dusty haze thrown up by thousands of vehicles steaming in both directions. I turned north and there before me the traffic seemed to emerge from the horizon, sky beings coming at high speed. I couldn’t imagine how it could be stopped. Turning south my eyes gazed into a developing plain at the curve of Interstate 10 where it meets Highway 19 in arching rivers of cement.
Standing still with the saguaros, I felt the thunderous vibrations in the land and realized how the trees and rocks must be perpetually jiggled by the cars and trucks. My mind could see the combustion of gas in all the engines all at once. I saw streams of fire moving across the land. The air danced above the inferno, waving ominously.
Then, I turned west toward the rounded backbone of the mountain itself and a line of low rounded hills covered with native vegetation. Beyond, the Tucson Mts. filled the sky. It seemed cooler, less on fire, and it seemed a place where one might find silence again.
Looking down at the coarse soil under my shoes, I studied the stones left by volcanic action and imagined the fiery birth of the region’s modern topography - a very different kind of fire. On this mountain and all along its base are the places where humans first lived and loved in what we now call Tucson (the place of black stones). There was a river at the bottom of this mountain, a river lined by small, densely growing trees. And there was an ocean of silence that lay over the land. For a long, long time this was so.
Then I turn to the east and look deeply into what has been created since that early time. And I wonder, “What were we thinking?”
Word Count: 368
Then, I turned west toward the rounded backbone of the mountain itself and a line of low rounded hills covered with native vegetation. Beyond, the Tucson Mts. filled the sky. It seemed cooler, less on fire, and it seemed a place where one might find silence again.
Looking down at the coarse soil under my shoes, I studied the stones left by volcanic action and imagined the fiery birth of the region’s modern topography - a very different kind of fire. On this mountain and all along its base are the places where humans first lived and loved in what we now call Tucson (the place of black stones). There was a river at the bottom of this mountain, a river lined by small, densely growing trees. And there was an ocean of silence that lay over the land. For a long, long time this was so.
Then I turn to the east and look deeply into what has been created since that early time. And I wonder, “What were we thinking?”
Word Count: 368
1 comment:
Eloquent and moving! I have to say this little piece caught me off guard, making me feel for a place I’ve never been. I’m pleased to know there are like-minded folks all across the continent.
Lorne Rothman
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