Nut Mix

Nogales. Same name both sides. Nogales means walnuts. Nuts and trains had a hand in making this town the center of the Tucson-Guaymas trade route. One town divided now by a metal line that snakes in and out of valleys then over crested hills. The woman at the Pimeria Alta Historical Society moved here 24 years ago. She has so much energy in her mind she says. So thrilled to show the relics removed from a 100 year old time capsule buried behind a copper plate in the clock tower. They buried a new one to be opened in another 100 years. Wonder, if anyone cares then, what they'll make of the proud and florid remains. Then there's the case of birds, she says. From Massachusetts they came on the first train arriving to the station. A station that only exists now in photographs as it was later destroyed to make room for border patrol. Now just goods, not people, pass through Nogales by train. Suppose that had always been the most important thing back then in the heady days of the Gadsden Purchase. So those birds. So many birds like new in that case. Brushed like new with an elephant's tail. They are mezmerizing, those birds. (November 30, 2017)