Riverflow

The longing moves outward through me from deep inside; it takes form. The Trinity Tree, he called it, named by the Christian mystic in the Rio Grande south valley: the ancient three-trunked Cottonwood in the sheltered courtyard behind his adobe contemplative center. It lost one of its three trunk-arms: the force of the storm had recently taken one. The meaning of its loss, the mystic pondered, a microcosmic reflection carrying a message for each of us to find about these globally troubled times.

In the Rio Grande north valley, I walk along a sandy path, imagining the nearby trail of the old Camino Real beside that timeless river. The river flows southward, she nurtures trees, wetlands, fields; she flows past history, bearing witness to centuries’ old echoes of violent Spanish men; she sings the turtles awake each new dawn, she waters deeply-rooted trees. I stop to sit under an old craggy-barked cottonwood along her banks, feeling the inner loss of my own compass. The river: low, yet ever-flowing.

I want to come home, back to her quiet nights of stars that held me, her wild thunderstorms and troubling droughts; her conquistadores, in ancient armor and modern technology. They shape my own landscape. Egrets stand silently now, focused on what lies beneath the water, my own losses--like the Trinity Tree-- not one of their concerns. Awakened turtles sun themselves as I admire their slow, unhurried movements, gentle strokes of turtle legs through warm, shallow water, simple acts of living where one belongs.