Barbara Henning

 

Third Street, Tucson
The light is white today and the oranges are glistening with rain water. Orange trees were brought here by the Spaniards, along with the Jesuit missions. Today the birds are quieter than usual. Maybe when they sing a lot, it’s because they are thirsty. The Santa Cruz used to flow year round, but then     ranchers        gold miners        farmers        population        suburban         water         drain      sprawl          On Third Street, a young man comes out of a seven bedroom house to smoke on the porch. I pass under a big sparse tree with low branches, so old and just standing there, one of the tallest trees in the neighborhood. It appears deciduous, but in fact it’s a low pine, an Allepo, an ancient tree from the Mediterranean. The estimated appraisal value is well over $20,000. Anne tells me on the phone that they were brought to Tucson as seedlings by a gas station as a gimmick 70 years ago too much too little Water flows from the Colorado River to the Gulf of Mexico and Tucson garden hoses     overflow         downpour         perennial springs     irrigation tree-lined     rivulet       monsoon        riverbed         barren        run dry Stein says “the work of man is not in harmony with the landscape, it opposes it and it is just that that is the basis of cubism.” Peddling along, I look down at my blue socks, one higher than the other. No city money for street repair this year, but instead an incredible pattern of intersecting cracks and potholes.