The Bosque is very dear to my heart. We live very near the bosque in the south valley and I go there often. Except for a few dirt trails it’s totally overgrown and as the rest of the world used to be before we “civilizers” came along. For me it is a place to be still, silent and walk very slowly without trying to get anywhere, without doing anything. I have spent countless hours there doing absolutely nothing. It is where one can find out how absolutely rich and full “absolutely nothing” can be. While waiting patiently there I have been invited into the lives of bald eagles, innumerable beavers, great horned owls, shaggy grumpy porcupines, infinite numbers of terribly busy ants of all shapes and sizes, great flocks of cranes, geese and ducks, hawks, falcons and swallows darting over the water and swooping high above the treetops. The plants do indeed talk to me and anyone who will listen without expectations. After all, do we expect them to speak English and offer a cheery “Good morning”. Trees nod as one pass, grasses rustle, leaves crackle underfoot, cottonwoods and elms quietly reach skyward, shading those who walk by while providing homes for birds, solace for us brooding humans and a feast for fungus and bacteria when they die and crumble inexorably back to the earth whence they came. And finally there is the water itself, the quiet centerpiece, spreading diffidently before us, the mother of it all. I am always respectful of the water as I approach. It too is always quiet and respectful to me, ever changing, flowing quietly, with its latent power gurgling occasionally as it wraps around a projecting rock or limb. I have thrown many a rock far out into the waters, secure in the knowledge that after it swirled its way to the bottom, it is even now still sitting there nestled in the mud, serene and filled with the quiet compacted energy of stones. It is very comforting to me to know that it will still be there until the day I die. Nope, I don’t want any wooden elevated trails through all of that. No concrete picnic tables, no smooth asphalt walkways, with signs showing the way to walk and others showing where not to walk. No wooden shelters with windows to look through, signs with written explanations of what I am looking at, with the names of trees and plants, no cappuccino bars, no boat launching ramps, no recorded messages explaining the geology of the Rio Grande rift. It’s fine as it is. We really do need to keep the mayor and his minions out, his construction company friends. I do wish they would all go to the moon and live in a leading edge oxygen bubble with cell phones and 5G internet access and continue to build and construct roads, buildings and things and surely make wars while they’re up there too. Mother earth needs a break from all that, not that it would be fair to the moon, but we do need a break down here for a while, perhaps a few thousand years. - Cliff Wilkie
Posted on: Fri, 20 Sep 2013 20:09:09 +0000
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