The Juniper Tree

The woody smell of juniper. Bright green needles drape off the branches shooting out from the gnarled, twisted bark of the trunk. The tree looks wise and ancient, solitary in this inhabitable desert landscape. Its berries sprung up after a recent spring rain and they contrast against the tree like water on a globe. At first glance, I think they're droplets leftover from the storm. The brown-grey-white-green-blue tree stands above the fiery red earth, the Navajo sandstone, and rises up from the mesa. It overlooks the desolate valley, and watches life come and go. It's withstood heat and droughts that killed other plants, animals, and even humans. It's survived wind, lightning, and hail and it's fed jackrabbits, coyotes, and birds. It thrives in this place of extremes, and gives, and lives on. I can't pinpoint what it is I find so intriguing about this tree, but it's enchanted me with its eternal presence, its invincibility, its resistance. I begin to feel the heat, the need for water and shade. I am not adapted to the environment in the precise way that the juniper is and I reluctantly leave, but the tree remains on that plateau, resiliently grown out of the rocks, above the valley forever under the wide open sky.