SandScript 2020

high on the slopes of the highest mountain
in the Santa Catalina range, Mt. Lemmon,
home to the southernmost ski area in North
America. The climate there resembles parts
of Canada more than southern Arizona; as
close to heaven as we can get, around here.
The creek leaves its alpine forest home
in a hurry (as the young are wont to do),
plummeting down from high escarpments,
carving narrow chutes through the steep
granite massif. It drops 6,000 feet in
elevation in only seven miles, watering in
turn conifer trees, then oaks and junipers,
then continuing to change life-zones
with each drop in elevation; manzanitas,
shin-daggers, century plants, and finally
ocotillos and prickly pears, where it ends
up serenely flowing out onto the floor of
the Sonoran Desert. It continues south
two miles to Carmen’s house, built in 1979,
another quarter mile to mine, 200 years
older, and then it gradually and gracefully
sinks into the sand, accepting its fate and
its all-too-short lifespan, contributing to
the underground river that goes through
Tucson, the Rillito, and continuing
on, enduring the purgatory of every
misunderstood and abused desert river,
until at last it finds rest in the Sea of Cortez.
*
My Easy horse and Carmen’s horse,
François-Marie, whom she also called
Twinkie sometimes, were old pals now.
François-Marie was a sorrel quarter horse
mare, shorter than Easy by an inch or three,
a little stockier, and a couple of years older.
They walked close together, side by side,
when the trail was wide enough, sometimes
making Carmen’s and my legs rub together.
Their sizes were similar enough that nobody
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