Poems by Maria Zafonte

All Used Up

by Maria Zafonte

From Canary Summer 2023

Maria lives at the edge of the Phoenix Mountain Preserves in the northern part of the Sonoran Desert where she conserves as much precious water as she can from the Colorado, Verde and Salt Rivers.

Roughly 300 million years ago, as this area we now know as Phoenix rose not from the ashes but from the ocean, underwater volcano flows pushed the tops of the Phoenix Mountain Preserves above the sea. Phoenix is encircled by these formerly submerged mountains today, though water is in shorter supply here now, unless you count the dots of blue swimming pools behind every house and the expanses of green golf courses visible from the plane window on an approach to Sky Harbor Airport. Some of these mountains have topographically descriptive names, like Moon or Camelback. Others are more geographic in nature, such as North and South, which ring the Valley on what used to be the—you guessed it—north and south extremes of the city, and now are more aptly the center of the endless sprawl that spreads on and on in each direction to support the 55,000-odd people who decided to call this desert metropolis their new home last year.

Shaw Butte is one of these Phoenix mountains and was one of the first peaks of lava to emerge from their volatile watery origins. This 2149-foot peak stands sentinel over the mundane chores of my comparatively insignificant life, looming in front of my window as I do dishes. When I grab the mail, I can sometimes hear the crunch of gravel under the tires of the utility vehicles as they climb the windy road to maintain the many cell towers perched atop the butte, sharing the trail to the summit with hikers.

On the eve of the summer solstice, I hike the initial quarter mile ascent of Shaw Butte. It is a steep and steady climb, and my breath is heavy as I rest on a rocky outcropping on the side of the mountain. The sun is low in the sky, large and shrouded in an orange glow. The sun itself is barely distinguishable from the corona of rays taking up the horizon. This red-orange, dispersed sunset is due in part to the distant wildfires raging in the north, giving rise to a smoky, low-hanging haze that colors the surrounding ring of mountain ranges shadowy blue-gray-purple all along the horizon.

It is hot —117 degrees of hot, a record-setting temp for this day in June—but with the sun low in the sky, the air is no longer skin-scorching, just heavy and oppressive. A strong wind kicks up occasionally and whips at the brim of my hat, threatening to send it up the trail. The blast of air buffets my ears, subsiding, then kicking back up without warning. Some gusts are strong enough to whistle through the nearby dry brittlebush plants and grasses, green from meager spring rains just two months ago, but now yellow-brown like dried tufts of unkempt, dirty blonde hair scattered among the basalt rocks on the side of the mountain. With such wind, there is an anticipation of relief, of some kind of cooling sensation, but instead there is just hot suffocating air, occasionally whipping up mountain dust that pricks at your eyes, despite squinting away from the gusts. The scattered creosote bushes are still covered in their withered yellow flowers and dried out cotton puffs. Their tiny oily leaves that produce the “smell of the desert” that is so distinct when it rains here, sway in the wind, scentless in the current unrelenting drought and heat of the Sonoran Desert.

As the sun continues to sink in the sky, lower, lower, almost but not quite ready to dip below the White Tank Mountain range far to the west of the Valley, it turns from orange to a pink orange like a grapefruit squeezing its ruby juice into the surrounding sky before the final descent. The golden cast on my skin is fading, and the sun—slowly, slowly then all of a sudden—sinks behind the mountains leaving behind a pink glow against the hazy gray blue of the distant mountain range, a true western sunset.

As I soak in the last of the day, I am reminded that just a little way up the trail ahead of me lie the archeological ruins of the Hohokam people who lived in this place half a millennium ago. At this time of year, one day before the solstice, I imagine the ancient Hohokam, their name often translated as “all used up,” climbing to the outcropping further up the trail where petroglyphs of swirls and dots remain among the damaged and graffitied rock, the ancient and sacred hidden among the modern and profane. These ruins are thought to map out rooms of a ritual sacred space where the longest day of the year was acknowledged to mark time and to signal the beginning of the saguaro fruit harvest. Is it possible that the Hohokam watched the sunset in this very same place before they disappeared from the earth? How long before unending drought and infernal heat forces modern Phoenicians to join the Hohokam in becoming ghosts who once roamed these ancient mountains, a modern-day people who are also all used up.