Thursday, May 26, 2005

Of desert and tree

My sister in Reno, NV had a small restaurant effecting Southwestern cooking called the Manzanita Cafe. I wrote this for her menu backpage.

MANZANITA MYTH


Before there was a moon to glow in the sky,
before creatures walked upright upon the earth,
there was the manzanita.
Black and ominous clouds roiled
continuously close to the ground
and many plants thought a while
and vanished from the high desert slopes.
There still was the manzanita!
It was silver then,
with wispy leaves of faint yellow,
and shallow roots that were easily pulled free.
The bush rolled and tumbled in the ceaseless winds
that laughingly kicked it about.
It was a plaything of the evening spirits.
But it survived.

There came a time when the great Taqawito
became displeased with the state of the earth.
He reshaped it by drawing away a great ball of rock,
and the whole earth trembled.
He tossed it away unto the sky
and watched the water rush into the crevasse,
and with it,
all of the creatures and plants that had come to bore Him.
At the rim of the great basin the waves crashed
and grasped at all the plants and drug them to the sea.
Only the free root manzanita escaped the wrath
and was laughingly ignored by the destruction.
The Taqawito began again
to built the earth and place upon it animals and fish,
and many beautiful plants, and birds high in the sky.
Seeing all this beauty
the tiny, lonely manzanita cried,
“No! Enough!”

It seized upon the jagged rocks
and claimed a place for itself in the new land.
The sun beat relentlessly down upon its silver skin
since there was not yet any clouds in the heavens.
Its fragile bark turned a rusty brown
that hardened against the wind.
Its tender leaves hardened also,
but absorbed the life giving rays at its own choosing;
bright green on the top if the weather was harsh,
a hint of silver on the underside to draw in the morning dew.
Stark. Aloof.
There was the manzanita.

It came to be
that all plants and creatures had to learn
that there was a time to wander free
and enjoy the pleasure of the gods.
There is a time to stand firm against adversity -
or vanish from the earth.
There will come a time to say,
“I care not what you think,
care not how you see me,
care not if you ever travel to the high desert
to share my silhouette
against the coldly sparkling milky way. I am...”
“I am the manzanita!”
faucon

1 Comments:

At 6:15 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

Oh faucon, I love this! But then, I love the Manzanita, I love it’s tenacity, I love it’s name. I think perhaps that I have been a plaything of the evening spirits. But I survived.

 

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