Walking Around in Arizona, Looking at Cactus

This cactus is beautiful, slumped over,drooping, gigantic, full of sorrow, yet content,
passing on its wisdom of the earth and sun
to children and grandchildren
scattered around this southwestern landscape
before it falls, sleeps, and rots.  
The desert really is lovely.

Cactus only poke us if provoked.
They are the ethical ninjas of the desert.
We, the humans, do the poking.

And look at the new ones, too,
these thorny sprouts, these blobs of green 
emerging from the hot brown desert ground
that fight for the right to grow another inch.
They struggle to increase their mass,
they yearn for signifigance, for the view
afforded by a slighty higher altitude.
"Taller!" is their cry,
"Let me grow taller!"  
 (Of course really the new ones say
nothing, but when I imagine them talking
all they talk about is growing.)
 
And the medium-sized cactus.
Gradually they assert themselves
with a new arm, a thirsty root burrowing deeper,
and when finally the chosen day dawns, 
behold, a flower.  Yellow, and perfect.