Contemporary Haibun Online

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June 2005, vol 1 no 1

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Bruce Ross, USA

Winter Desert

Mile after mile the desert landscape, uniquely covered with giant cactus, saguaro, organ pipe, senita, some forty feet tall, begins to absorb your very consciousness, as you travel across the endless Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation, situated in southern Arizona along the Mexican border. The cold winter rain does not let up and drives you further into yourself. At an occasional break the golden desert weeds seem suffused with light.

desert rain
by the roadside cross
fresh flowers

The fantastically shaped saguaro take on human form: two large cactus arms held up in prayer, a big and little saguaro, parent and child, spine-to-spine, the arms of a cactus twisted in ecstatic dance. The cactus have survived to their own ends in this place and the Indians have made peace with this.

as close together
the stand of saguaro
Indian gravestones

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