by Jane St. Clair

The tall saguaro are strange plants indeed. Oaks and maples and such trees have great spreading armsfuls of leaves but saguaro trees are streamline. Saguaros have no leaves that rustle, no branches to hang on when you climb your way up to the top. They never change with the seasons except for their flowertops.

They have no bark, just smooth green skin that is exposed and exquisitely pleated and pocked with foreboding needles.

A saguaro forest has a certain silence about it. No crunching of dead leaves under your feet, no wind sounds of crackling branches, and no crinkling noises of leaves answering the wind back.  You won’t hear the gentle rushings of forest animals or catch their eyes staring back at you, like the frightened deer trying to hide by standing still as a statue, the squirrel checking out your whereabouts, or the songbird cantillating a signature song.

A saguaro forest is still and silent.  The giant trees stand as steadfast tin soldiers placed there in eternity by some gargantuan commander. They stand in their perfect postures in their squadrons of perfect formation, always at attention, never seeming at ease .. And your eyes can follow the great battalions of them as they go marching up the mountainsides.

It takes a while to understand their seriousness. These are beings that have stood steadfast for centuries.. since before the American colonies. This forest was here during the Civil War and the Great Two World Wars of one century past, and I have the sense that they will survive with or without us.

They are steadfast.  They stand just as still when snow falls on them, and hold just as still when silly spring flowers dance nearby. You don’t hug them, you respect them.

In the dusk the saguaro forest can have a pinkish glow.

At sunset its trees become black obelisks.
Saguaro Forest

Despite the capriciousness of seasons and the light changes of the day and night, they are steadfast and still.

Their silence bestows solitude and makes you feel peaceful.

Peace to you too, sister and brother saguaros.

For more of Jane’s homage to saguaros, go to here and also here.

“Daddy Making Dancing in the Kitchen,” a short story by Jane St. Clair, was a finalist in the Tucson Festival of Books Fiction Contest for 2020.