Those rich herbs and glorious flowers are now but a faint memory of a nearly forgotten Spring.
Nothing remains of the once magnificent display except the hollow dry bones of stem and seed capsule.
All around, the dry rattle of faded plants sings a eulogy for what was.
This though is the time of the dry land specialists, those indomitable plants that thrive in deserts and blistering heat.
The palm, pistachia, and the mightily thorned shrubs now come into their own.
Yet, even now in this great dry, it is possible to make out the last remaining sources of water, marked as they are by the lines of trees descending the slopes.
The landscape slumbers, it does not die.
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Photo: Betis from Silla del Papa. Courtesy of the author.
