At Tumacácori – A Poem

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Tumacacori Mission Garden ©2016 Bo Mackison

Look past electric wires, telephone poles,
a coiled rubber hose, the 19th century stone wall
cracked open for a water spigot?

Don’t listen to the traffic on the interstate up the hill,
rumbling cars speeding from Nogales to the Border Patrol checkpoint.

Silence the background and search for sacred silence in this sacred space.
Block the sounds of horns blaring,
ignore the heated words of the couple standing near the rose bush.

Shhh.

Hear rustling leaves, whistling wind?
See shimmer in the cotttonwood trees?

These winds were in this garden, long ago.
The trees now camouflaging sparrows’ nests, they were here.
The fountain — the garden’s heart — it was here with its rippling waters.
Dust blowing from the Tumacácori Mountains – the dust was here.

Those mountains? They stand in silence and watch. They have watched all these years.
Arched doorways still shelter the walkway,
a courtyard protects a painted statue of the Virgin with her Babe.
They continue to watch.

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Tumacacori Mission, Tumacacori Mountains ©2016 Bo Mackison

The yucca, the tepary beans trailing along the earth.
The nut tree saplings,
swaying in rhythm with the winds.
They witnessed. They continue to witness.

The che-che-chee of the sparrows mix with voices
raised in song — of praise and protest,
in elation and humiliation, in gratitude and in mourning.

I hear their voices, I hear the choir lift their voices in song.
Harmonizing
Chanting
The rising alleluias, the longing amens.

Voices. Do you hear them?
Che-che-cheee sing alleluia.
Siss-siss-siss, the leaves dance, twirl along the dusty path.

Hearts dancing, hold your gaze on the star hunter,
poised, aiming his arrow at the full moon.
Hidden voices in the whistling winds.
Hidden eyes, watching Tumacácori.

Listen.

Watch.

Hush.

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It is here that Jesuit Father Kino, traveling north from Mexico (New Spain) visited a settlement of  O’odham and founded Mission San Cayetano de Tumacácori in 1691.
It is here the mission remained for 157 years, a complicated existence of conversion, Apache conflict, disease, harsh conditions.
It is here where I sit in the restored gardens, stand in the mission interior and I listen. I hear.

Trees As Sanctuary – A Poem

Looking at the Past

Tree Sanctuary © 2014 Bo Mackison

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life. ~ Herman Hesse

Trees As Sanctuary

1806, The People Build the Church

They press brick, kiln lime, raise walls, lay roofing,
paint murals, sculpt sacred ornamentation, build niches for the statues of the Saints.
They clear land, build fences, plant corn and wheat,
and from the priests’ cache of pods and seeds, they plant and then they tend
fruit orchards, nut trees, olive groves.
They learn the missionaries’ way.
They marry, raise children, care for their sick, weep for their dying, bury their dead.

1827, Weary, Ill, and Wary of Raiding Enemies

Many of the People wrap statuary in leathery strips of yucca,
bundled saints now cradled like newborn babes
protected from summer’s heat, shifting winds, monsoon storms,
from damage to their wooden limbs or painted robes or eyes of porcelain marbles.
The People walk north, leave the Tumacácori Mountains,
settle in a valley to the North, build another mission, settle in.

1848, Tumacácori Mission, Deserted in the Desert

No missionary priest leads his people crucifix in hand,
his carved cross held high, his silhouette a contrast to this blue bowl of sky.
No one gives signal to the last few of the Desert People
who abandon their homes, possessions, crops;
abandon their church, its stacks of brick adobe
with the limestone wash, white like angels’ wings;
now the church is pale apparition towering midst desert grasses, agave, mesquite
standing in the foreground of the mountains.

2016, A View through the Window

Open to the cool desert nights,
no roof for protection, no doors.
Only ruins remain and ruins they shall remain.
Window remnants frame the cottonwoods, green and tall,
that line the Santa Cruz River.

Spellbound, I walk to the water,
leafy branches arch a roof above my head,
provide spongy leaf-carpet for my weary feet.
Wisps of white cotton fluff, seeds of the future drift on a southwest breeze.

Trees as sanctuary.

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Posting a desert-related poem each day in April, National Poetry Month. Updated poems from my blog archives, new poems written as sacred practice, and selected, favorite poems from other poets.

Garden View – December’s Photo-Heart Connection

Tumacacori Garden Wall

Tumacacori Garden Wall © 2012 Bo Mackison

Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love. ~ Rumi

As I looked through the photographs I took in December in preparation for posting for the monthly photo practice, the  Photo-Heart Connection, I found a huge variety of photos. Part of the month I lived in southern Arizona and part of the month I lived in Wisconsin.

Throughout the month there were Holiday preparations and celebrations, opportunities for photos focusing on family and friends. The week before Christmas a blizzard slammed Madison, prompting a two-day snow holiday while we waited for the plows to clear a path through almost two feet of snow, and turning the city into a white wonderland. I had a lot of snow photos.

It was a telling selection when I passed by the winter scenes and gravitated to the photographs from the desert and arid regions of Arizona. I loved visiting with my family and celebrating Christmas in Wisconsin.

But I realized — I left my heart in Arizona.

 

This photo is my choice for this month’s Photo Heart Connection. I join other photographers at Kat Eye Studio and post a photo taken during the prior month that “connects with my heart” as a monthly photography practice.

I also wrote a guest blog on Kat’s site, A Year of Photo-Heart Connections, which summarizes the lessons I’ve learned while doing this photography practice.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.

Twisted Trees – The Desert Mesquite

Twisted Tree Grove

Tree Grove ©2012 Bo Mackison

“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way.  Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and some scarce see Nature at all.  But to the eyes of the man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.” ~ William Blake, 1799

Mesquite trees are an Arizona symbol – tough, adapted to desert living with a root system that grows deep into the earth. A tap-root can extend as far as 150 feet into the ground in search of moisture.

They bring flowers to the desert, first in spring and then again after the monsoons, and provide nectar for bees which then produce a sweet mesquite honey. The seeds are ground into flour in many desert cultures, a practice that has lasted for centuries, and continues to this day.

The mesquite improves the soil in which it grows, as it is a nitrogen stabilizer. A natural fertilizer.

The grove of trees in the above photograph grows next to the mission church at Tumacacori National Historic Park.

They may not be tall and stately like the California Redwood, nor provide a spectacular display of autumnal color like the Eastern and Midwest hardwoods, but there is a fascination with the gnarled, sharply angled branches extending from the mesquite’s thick trunk.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.

Gates to the Orchard

Vintage Orchard at Tumacacori

Vintage Orchard at Tumacacori @2012 Bo Mackison

A man does not plant a tree for himself, he plants it for posterity. ~ Alexander Smith

In 2004, Tumacácori National Historical Park acquired adjacent property to the park, including  the original 5-acre mission orchard and a portion of agricultural area, and their goal was to replant the Spanish Mission Era orchard and garden.

They decided to use fruit tree stocks (cultivars) traced to those introduced to that area in the late 17th and early 18th centuries by the Jesuits and those introduced a century later by the Franciscans.

Mission Gate at Tumacacori National Historic Site

Mission Gate at Tumacacori National Historic Park ©2012 Bo Mackison

Though I can find no written information on this gate, the Park Ranger I spoke with said the gate had been newly erected. Built by a local metal works craftsman after much research, the gate is in the Mission style of the 18th century and thought to be similar to the original.

Gate to Vintage Orchard at Tumacacori National Historic Site

Gate to Vintage Orchard at Tumacacori and Beyond ©2012 Bo Mackison

“Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.”  – Hermann Hesse, Wandering

The orchard can be seen beyond the vine-covered gate. It’s a lovely space, near the Santa Cruz River and the ten thousand foot forested mountains in the Coronado National Forest. On the far eastern edge of the historic site, there are a few benches for some quiet time in a pastoral setting.

After days of hiking in the more rugged canyons of the nearby deserts and mountains, I found the orchard a place filled with an orderliness with a purpose. It was a different kind of space, yes, but the perfect interlude and space for reflection and writing.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is grateful that there is a time and place for quiet meditation, sitting by an orchard in the shade of the mountains.