(for modernist architect Judith Chafee)
“I think I will drown in the
green muck of Connecticut,”
she wrote, longing for Tucson.
No encroaching lawns, no creeping ivy,
no spreading trees framing the homes.
She needed the wide blue open
space of the desert, with the solid
vertical of bare stony mountains,
the gritty sand at her feet.
There was something of the
desert within her,
the spiny bristle of saguaro,
self-possession of the prickly pear,
reaching to sky of the yucca flower,
some inner knowledge of rocks.
She required this sparseness,
where her houses could
spring from earth,
some organic minimalist form
amidst the cacti.

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