Mining Scars In The Valley Below Madera Canyon — image by kenne
We Scar The Things We Love
There is always something worth trekking
in the Sonoran Desert.
Sometimes, the treks start early in the morning,
driving across the Tucson basin over
occasional low water crossings and cattle guards
on narrow roads, stopping for big yellow buses.
A canyon road leads out of Green Valley,
a quiet, peaceful community
along the banks of the Santa Cruz River
covered with oaks and walnut trees
and a rich history with the Tumacacori Mission
to the south and San Xavier del Bac to the north.
Crossing one-lane bridges through a grassland bajada,
the road climbs toward Madera Canyon
nestled between Mt. Wrightson and Mt. Hopkins
on the eastern slope of the Santa Rita Mountains,
forming one of the Sonoran desert’s Sky Islands,
an oasis above this bowl-shaped canyon.
Although some are called “Friends of Madera Canyon”
all visitors, be they hikers, birders, walkers,
or just those relaxing at one of the beautiful vistas
share a love of nature and being outdoors,
forming a friendship that helps bond
memoirs of a shared love.
“All the while, jumbled memories flirt out on their own,”
intruding on nature’s beautiful vistas
where a river once ran through, now shadowed
by a high wall of tailings surrounding a pond,
altering nature’s beautiful vistas above the canyon,
producing lasting scars on the sky above and the earth below.
— kenne
