The Eternal Desert

I know you, el desierto. You are called Sonora. Step lightly, el viento. Your reckless wanderings disturb me. I am old and wish to be at rest. You are old? Ageless. I also am old, yet I dance. You are not old. You were born only today and will be gone before the night passes. Your dance is spirited but your twisting path through my being is temporary. You will be gone tomorrow; I shall remain. Indeed! Do you not know me? I am the wind! I have shaped you, O silent desert! I have sculpted you from earth and rock. Not you, my reckless young friend. Not you. You will alter my appearance slightly with each whirl, but by comparison, you will lift only one grain of sand. I have known your forefathers. They have touched me as you will touch me, each painting but a stroke then twisting away. In endless procession, they mark my surface, never content with what has been done. You are powerless against us, then. I resist. But you cannot stop us. Ah, my foolish young companion. You spin and whirl with no capacity for thought. But I do not chastise you, for your time is short while mine is forever. You speak of forever as though you know it.We are bound together. My time extends back to when the very earth upon which you dance in folly was empty. Before the first plant, before the first being, I was. Scientists, in all their wisdom, peer at my physical parts and declare: "It is 63 million years old!" But others probe with their instruments of progress and they disagree, saying: "Not so! It is only 5 million years old!" Their quibbling does not effect me. I am. I remain.

You will be conquered. Perhaps. It is inevitable! Man will take away your solitude. You will serve him.He has tried. He will continue. But first, he must learn. Your cousin, the rain, neglects me. I have adapted to his inconsistencies. If man would conquer me, he must do likewise. But will he make the rain to stay with the clouds when they ascend over the mountain peaks? Will he find vast stores of water beneath my surface? Will he solve the puzzle of withdrawing the salt from the waters of the oceans? I think not. My supremacy is unchallenged.

You underestimate man. Already there are settlements. I have danced through them.

Yes. But they are small and I am vast. My boundaries stretch to places you will never see. Man calls these places California, Arizona, New Mexico, Sonora, Baja California.

I am there. I stand watch over 120,000 square miles. The settlements are specks. They do not threaten me.

The settlements will grow. Others will come.

Perhaps. But there are other areas which man finds more desirable. He will challenge them first. You and I share a harsh land, my young friend. Look! Look at my adornment shrubs that subsist on less than 10 inches of water during a year because the rain clouds stay away... plants that have learned to hoard water to survive...seedlings that lie dormant for years awaiting a rain that will sustain them. I thrive in such conditions.

It is because you are my creation. My moisture is sparse and the clouds, even those who merely promise rain but never fulfill, are infrequent. But the sun is constant. Unimpeded by clouds and uncooled by moisture, he hurls his rays against me with a brutal force. Still, I resist. And in so doing, I create the very forces that spawn you. But tomorrow you will have danced into oblivion and others like you will come to rearrange my countenance. I will be here. I have outlived every plant and every creature that has dared invade my perimeters. They spring forth, fresh with hope, determined to make me bend to their desires. I do not yield. Most fail in their feeble endeavors. Those who survive adapt to me; I make no concessions to them. I triumph.

You are right. Even now I grow weak. My time is ended. Does such a fate ever await you, el desierto viejo? No. I am eternal.