Mesquite

A mesquite tree is like an iceberg. Those roots go

a long, long way down.

S. F Henderson, West Texas rancher

Each one the shape of its soul-

knotted like an old squaw

or pliant as young girls naked by a stream.

Tejas Indians, politely accepting the Catholic

word of God, already knew the word for tree of life:

Shade Whose Tap Root Drinks The Desert.

Female. Fat with many children.

For horseless tribes, mesquite beans

served more ways than buffalo.

A good woman ground forty kilograms

of flour a day. Each July, she and her sisters

gathered the beans in baskets woven tight

as that which rescued Moses.

Even during drought years, bean pods fell like manna,

husks curled like Manitou's smile.

The word for bean was the same as that for rain.

Dissolved, mesquite beans cured sore throats;

swallowed, they purged the system.

Medicine men, spitting on their palms,

worked the flour into a paste

some say healed the blind.

Pressed against the cheek and pricked with cactus needles,

the leaves left a blue tatoo-Thumbprint Of God-

protection from all evils.

Around 1850, the mesquite spread to grasslands:

cowboys and trail herds. Soldiers.

Their horses ate the beans,

germinated the seeds and passed them on-

war and cattle trails remembered with mesquite.

Today, ranchers call them Scrub To Burn.

Tares In Wheat. In town,

home owners wear down chainsaws against the trunks

and, being long accustomed to sprinkler systems and

store-bought bread, curse the beans

nothing seems to stop from falling.