This air slowly drowns its victims, while the parasitic verdure lays claim to the remnants. It’s why the southern drawl is so drawn out and drowsy, why life here moves so slowly. The sugary twang of voices, the melodic sounds floating around mint juleps and overly sweet-tea, belie their acid-laced intent. Make no mistake, a glance can sufficiently bring discomposure, and a word, placed just so, to choke.

There is an art to it, this hidden life. Rosewood screamed, but it was muffled by too many trees and too much white skin. The voices never made it, never trailed off toward the west, never experienced the welcoming mountain, sage, piñon, or mesquite.

A young mesquite tree sits in a pot on my porch. It reminds me of where my roots are, where I grow best, and I am sorry for it. Sorry that its own roots have never felt the pleasure of the desert soil, have never stretched and dried out under the lovely burn of the sun. It has never felt night air so perfect, or seen a moon so bright and large that it could reach up and kiss it. It has never known the company of boulders, cactus, or prairie dogs, and it has never looked down upon the desert valley, or experienced the magic of a desert city under the stars.
Places where the stars are so bright, clear, and deep, that the Milky Way becomes a 3-d experience, with us, actual size, right in the middle—of nowhere.

But I know my lonely desert roads aren’t lonely any longer. Homes and shopping centers explode the landscape where they are needed least, and clutter always fills spots that seem, “empty.”

My poor little mesquite tree, gasping for air in this humid marsh, reminds me of what I am missing, of where I need to be. Where secrets are quiet, but not ever quite secret. Where the wind carries the words away from our lips the moment they spring forth, and we no longer have ownership of them. I see the South’s secrets lurking toward my small, delicately leafed tree, and I fear for it. They are far too heavy for its lacy leaves, and the small thorns on its wobbly limbs are yet too green to bear the push of such dark burdens.