Florida Canyon
In my mind, Florida Canyon is where you live now, among the Mexican blue oaks and agaves and native cotton along the stream, needing neither food nor rest, with the ladder-backed woodpeckers and Bewick’s wrens for company.
Morning after morning I stand by river, asking, “Where are you today?” And you answer: “Florida. I love it.” Once in a while I see you instead at a fork in some unfamiliar Ozark trail, and there you are rambling or sitting on a stump, “out with the dogs,” you say. This part I don’t understand. But most days it is Florida, a place we have known only in winter, when the flowers the canyon is named for have gone to seed, and the Santa Rita Experiment Station on the other side of the fence stands mostly quiet.
I don’t know if these thoughts are tricks of the mind, but I know your voice speaks in me, so I won’t apologize for this too much.
I was glad I came to the hospital that week, whenever they let me, alone and in my mask, to fold your fingertips, purple with blood that couldn’t move, in my hands. I was glad I muscled my way into the last 20 minutes of visitors’ hours, the night before we let you go, and asked the nurse to turn off the television. I was glad I pressed in every word I had for you: that they had called the election for Biden (and your advance vote had counted), that I didn’t want you to go, but if that’s what you wanted, it was okay.
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The first time Mom and I came back to Florida, we felt bereft. You had always done the driving on those rough roads, where we watched for cattle and javelinas among the mesquite. This time we a left too soon and had to backtrack. You had always wanted to go out for lunch, which cut the morning short, but this time we had packed sandwiches. You had always taken photos, and even though there already were enough to make 20 more years’ worth of holiday cards, we would miss your evening ritual of sorting the day’s images.
It had been a dry year in 2021. The stream barely ran, and the cotton stood sparse and short. You were better than Mom at calling the birds in, and she got discouraged after half an hour. We had gotten a late start anyway and felt the slightest bit guilty about it; you had always gotten us out the door of the casita by 9.