Everything Unsecured Is At Risk
Everything unsecured is at risk. The wind is a creature, an animal, a snake that fits itself into every crack. There is no place it cannot conform. Tumbleweeds are the sign that everything is coming loose. Tents roll away despite hammer-embedded stakes.
Everything unsecured is at risk, like a storm-tossed ship. The grasses that have managed to survive the heat of the desert are moved by the wind, an action of external forces. They try to bend enough to survive but not uproot. In doing, they may displace but just a few millimeters. Perhaps grow rootlets on the side taking the most stress, buffeting their future selves against future windstorms.
Everything unsecured is at risk. The fine red sand moves in a wave over the surface of the earth the same as powdery snow lifts over ridgelines and settles into gullies. Grain by grain, its delicate fingers trail over the surface. Lift, move, settle.
Everything unsecured is at risk.
What would those tumbleweeds be for me? The things that might be somersaulting down the road with the next gust?
What would have grown roots? Clinging to the cracked soil with all its might?
Inspired by events in Goblin Valley, Utah, on the traditional homeland of the Ute people.