How many times have I been in this place? How many times have I imagined it when in need of escape? Here, the sky surrounds me like water. If I tilt my head up just a little, blue is all that I can see. I could be floating but for the bedrock beneath me. I sit on the top of a hill, rocky, sandy, and prickly with barrel cactus, ocotillo, lechuguilla and sotol. The landscape all around me is rocky, sandy and prickly, an extension of my hill in an endless desert of soil and sky without end. The only break in this scene is the Rio Grande snaking through my view, cutting me off from a land that looks exactly like this, but is Mexico. I could swim there, easily, if it was legal and I was willing to spend some time in a Mexican prison.
