Hilito en el desierto.
Text, Thread in the desert.
A rocky landscape. Two people hold two thick strands of thread.
One person pulls a strand toward them with both hands. A large insect flies by.
Another person pulls the other strand toward them. The thread skips along the rocks.
A person runs their fingers along the thread as the other person holds the other end. They retrieve the thread.
The thread is pulled out of their hands.
Dandelions ensnared in spiderwebs dance in the soft breeze.
Rocks and branches form a carpet on the parched desert panorama.
A breeze jiggles the spindly brush. The thread is pulled through the spiky bramble.
The person struggles to untangle the thread from the bush.
The long thread is caught on a bare tree. The person holds onto both ends, pulling and tugging, and the thread dances in the breeze amid the green, verdant cacti.
Two tall cacti looking like skyscrapers are cast against the deep blue sky.
Connected at their roots, they could be two fingers flashing the victory sign.
Four people hold the long, thick thread. They pass to each other a large mound of what could be white cotton. Jumbled up together, the one-inch-thick thread is the size of a soccer ball.
As they pass the large mound to one another, they are unraveling the huge thread so that there is no mound anymore. At the same time, they are winding the thick thread around the towering cactus.
Round and round they go, making five, and then six circles around the cactus.
The pure white thread starkly stands out against the pale green cactus.
A woman in pink pants and shirt, a wide-brimmed hat on her head, walks by the cactus now encircled with the thread.
From the end of the thread on the ground, we follow it up as it winds around the thick cactus.
The thread shimmies and jiggles in the soft breeze.
Cacti near and far line up along the hill of the parched desert.
Bare brush with a tinge of greenery marks the only complement to the tall spikes of cacti arising from the desolate earth.
A person's outstretched arms hold two ends of a thread. Modest homes and buildings provide a backdrop before a mountain range in the distance.
Four people are holding the ends of two pieces of string about three feet in length. They stand across from each other, two people on the left and two on the right, each sharing a string.
Standing in a line now, holding the string, they move their arms up and down, creating an undulating pattern.
They continue to make these gestures with the string, as if they are communicating with the brushy desert before them.
Up and down and around they go.
The four people are creating a spiderweb-type pattern with the thread. It looks like a loom, with two-foot-long stretches of string laid straight across.
The people make undulating gestures with their fingers intertwined into the thread.
Back and forth, to and fro they go. In a rippling pattern, they move their hands.
They make tiny gestures with fingers wrapped around the thread. Amid the silence is the light breeze rustling.
The end of the string is pulled upon the ground of the dense, rocky brush.
Configurations of rocks, pebbles, and broken cacti are scattered throughout the landscape.
A township of humble homesites and nondescript buildings dot the expanse of land.
The long thread dances and bobs up and down, like a slow jumprope weaving.
Four hands hold up clusters of the jumbled string.
With the pale blue sky as their backdrop, their arms extend upward. The string becomes tangled and intertwined between them.
Their hands dance, palms facing up, fingers curling.
Suddenly, everyone takes a step back, pulling the patchwork of threads apart.
Text, a performance by Cecilia Vicuna. Filmed at the Sonoran Desert. May 18th to 20th, 2012. Tucson, Arizona. This film was produced by the University of Arizona Poetry Center for the 2012 Poetry Off the Page Symposium, in Tucson, Arizona.
Videography by Open Lens Productions. Credits. Special thanks. Copyright Cecilia Vicuna, 2012.