Claudio – Desert

I’ve a lot to learn from my son. He should have been a writer. He’s much better than I am. He was in Arizona for the university study abroad program (2015?) and they showed him the desert. He wrote home to Italy about his experience and I must have translated it into English.

Boots, always boots …..but on the dry gravel of the desert no, the sole of cowboy boot sounds better …..gives you impressive blisters but sounds just great as you raise that cloud of red dust …. dry and sharp like the  blades of the cactus, swollen, almost in a dance pose …..I’m sure that if I suddenly turned I would catch one or two as they were moving …. but they’re sly …. they know it …. and don’t move …. almost …. a saguaro for every indian …..as many arms as  wives  … branches raised skywards, good wives, drooping branches, bad wives …. surely the most intelligent in an androcentric world …. the most likeable …. the most unlucky …. and perhaps the most beautiful. The sun goes down fast in the desert …. the pack-rats hiding under their collections of everything, leaves, branches, pebbles, grass  (not much), impatiently waiting to come out ….but the coyotes are waiting too….waiting impatiently for the rodents to come out, for the wild rabbits to begin to look for food …. and they’ll do that too …. all together ….  passionately….with their uncouth howling …. do they think they’re cats?….they ‘re smiling under their broad-brimmed hats …. no they’re coyotes, don’t go where there isn’t any light …. attracts the dogs….the horses are snorting too …. too much confusion, too close .. they’re smiling, good old boys…ya know…. nice guys….cold sharp as the generous servings of sauce on the tortillas gets into your bones, it’s really cold, and the temperature falls just as the stars rise above the mountains, pushed upward by the coyotes, they shine shivering with the cold, then they stop …. and their song begins …. shining, majestic, uncontrollable …. but tonight there’s a professional telescope to reveal one of their loveliest voices, stealthily we appropriate the notes of the great hunter Orion who dared to refuse the goddess Artemis and was therefore killed….his belt shines in the black sky with a line of three  stars with the magic names, Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka ….and tonight they are singing…. accompanied by the cantankerous unruly coyotes and the wind that gets colder and colder and that the cactus can’t hold back….this time the soles of the boots move slowly, trying not to make any noise….the hunter is dead…. but he’s singing…