not even the wispy bright green palo verde or the centuries old saguaros with arms stretched up to meet the sky (you know, those guardians that tower above the uneven rocky terrain who graciously provide shade and sustenance and shelter especially when left alone to populate the land across the jagged edges of sloped mountains that push the earth up towards the sky in a way that touches the clouds : ridges that punctuate the blue red purple gray orange white above with forms that take on names stories legacies); or the winds paired with rains that visit a couple times of year who invite the clouds to envelope the sky with such fierce intensity and warmth and presence though I honestly can’t share the details because it’s not really my story to tell; or the vibrant scurry of squirrels or rabbits or javelinas or roadrunners or spiders who puncture the ground with their tusks or claws or legs in a way that lets the land breathe and enable the rains to nourish the soils mixed with clay rock sand sediment and roots (those shallow widespread lateral vascular systems that store hundreds of gallons of water rapidly amidst an arid desert environment which radiate as far wide just beneath the surface as they grow tall and who somehow have the energy to push through the rough compacted rock and earth when the rains have left for a while); and don’t even get me started on the pollinators (whose frenetic flights are slowed when they stop to forage in the blessing of flowers in bloom and who move through and around and over to keep things as they always were while encouraging new sprouts and shoots and blossoms tendrils before returning to their hives to concoct the sweet sweet delicacies of processed plant nectar they are known for); or the other teachers and kin who have passed on and linger in the crevices and openings and spaces and pathways that remind us of our pasts and this ever so precious and precarious present so that we can better shape and endure a future for those we will never know : and yet I understand it’s hard to receive a message when the messengers have been cast out or at least dissuaded from returning because there’s not much left to eat or perch or drink or say when we are simply not listening or at least holding still to witness how all this will unfold even when they are all screaming in the heat wishing for some shade or a place rest or for the rains to settle or a quiet that calms the anxious flutter because we were never meant to endure this