Actually, this is a half-fried Joshua tree damaged in the Quail Springs Fire, which burned in Joshua Tree National Park in 1999, and which was at that point the largest fire in the park since 1945. I took this photo five years ago, Valentine’s Day 2001. I should get back there to see if the unburned half has survived. I would take solace in it either way, at this point.
A few minutes after I took the photo Becky and Zeke and I hiked out to a group of rounded granite boulders to eat lunch. While my back was turned, she fiddled in her daypack and brought out a card, handed it to me. It was a Valentine from her and Zeke. She always does that kind of thing.
A raven started barking at something, and I snapped the second photo above as Becky and Zeke watched it. Then I turned. The raven was atop a Joshua tree, and it just wouldn’t shut up. And then something else started barking. It sounded like a poodle. And then not. It was a coyote, and it was barking. At us. It stood at the base of the Joshua tree that held the raven, and it wanted to be where we were, though I imagine we would have been welcome to leave the sandwiches.
It was the first time a coyote had ever barked at me, though I had heard them sing countless times. I stood with my family and watched the Coyote and the Raven in the Joshua tree, as close a thing to a Holy Trinity as I could imagine.
