Notes from the Colorado River: Part IV

He told me that it was called a century plant, that tall green stalk sprouting up from the rocks. It lives about thirty years, he said, and in that time, it only flowers once. I asked then why’s it called a century plant? Thirty years, that’s not so long. But now, I’m thinking, maybe the number of years in a century, in a life, don’t matter so much. If you can put out a display like that, a pinnacle of green in the red cliffs, maybe that’s your century. Some kind of herald of a hundred-year-worthy accomplishment. And maybe, it takes the other 70 years to wither away.













-muse