Lauren Camp

I write through place. Sometimes, I write specifically about a place, but more often, I use a location to help me consider something else: an emotion, a loss, a love, a confusion. I do this intuitively, rather than with great intention.

My poem “Property” is firmly located on the land that I have inhabited for 28 years. It is a semi-arid steppe region sitting at 7,000 feet. The elements (intense wind, sun and little moisture) have made growing anything a challenge. The critters, mainly squirrels and rabbits, come take what they need.

Perhaps it is human nature to want to beautify a place, to caretake. Over time, I have learned what grows well, and what to let go of, what to realize never had a chance. In late summer, the monsoon activity starts. We who live here are exhilarated by it, grateful for the rain singing over the parched ground. Flash floods fill every hole and build new ones. The rains from nearby communities can also rage our arroyo (dry riverbed). This summer, we began to experiment with how to influence some of that powerful force, how to help the water move in certain ways to slow it down so it can soak in and limit certain areas from washing away.

After the intense rains come, goatheads (Tribulus terrestris L.) pop up. It takes no time for them to spread. You want to catch them before they put out those five-petaled, yellow flowers which, in very few days, become diabolical stickers that ride into the house on your boots and lie in wait for bare feet. This plant, also known as bullhead, caltrop, Mexican sandbur, puncture vine, and Texas sandbur, grows mainly in the western United States. We’ve learned to identify it early. We try to get out and start weeding as soon as they appear.

Writing about nature doesn’t, for me, mean writing about beauty. It means writing about reality. But then again, maybe these are the same.