One can, with effort, pity a person so maimed that he is willing to destroy entire ecosystems, bend and break laws, insult indigenous conservators of sacred places, and squander our physical and fiscal inheritance to build a medieval monument to his own vanity.
Pity, perhaps, but how can we forgive when the daily assaults continue? -- to the San Pedro, to Quitobaquito Springs, and to cherished places and public lands between.
When we are only memory, perhaps earth will heal itself, somehow transformed, but this place will not be this place.
Almost 50 years ago, Tucsonβs Richard Shelton published βRequiem for Sonora,β love poem and lament, still applicable. It concludes: βI have learned to accept / whatever men choose to give me / or whatever they choose to withhold / but oh my desert / yours is the only death I cannot bear.β
For the San Pedro, may God send a great flood!
Ila Abernathy
Midtown
Disclaimer: As submitted to the Arizona Daily Star.
