Dr. K calls me with good news: the pathology report shows the tumor is contained. No metastasis has occurred, no further treatment is required. I must submit quarterly psa measures. Undetectable levels for five years will enable his conservative self to declare a cure. Ungrateful, I grumble that my plumbing continues to function unreliably. What can be done? “Walk” he says. “Nothing will help you recover faster than walking.”

Inspired, I set out to hike through Parque Landeta, an open space preserve near home. Until now, shuffling around the block had constituted the whole of my post-surgery exercise program. Time for a change.

Summertime is Mexico’s most beautiful season in the altiplano. My path takes me though swathes of matapulga (pinkweed) and rosilla (dogweed). The former is said to kill fleas, hence the name.

Parque Landeta authorities aren’t prissy about mixed use in the preserve. A cornfield occupies the eastern end. Sheep crop lush plants that grow where floodwaters have receded. Opportunistic egrets mingle with the flock, gobbling up insects disturbed by grazing.

An inviting path winds among huizaches, past ruins whose original purpose is anyone’s guess.

To the west, the path passes through a gate marking the boundary of El Charco del Ingenio. Neither farm animals nor dogs may trespass here, nor hunters with slingshots.

Within El Charco, wetland restoration has created a summery place. I hear continual birdsong and quacking. Dragonflies hover over water weeds, hundreds of butterflies sip at mud puddles.

Just a year ago, great yellow machines belching black smoke labored to return old silted-up Obraje to wildlife habitat. I wrote then about my satisfaction seeing instruments of environmental destruction so redirected.

Along the track, a lichened rock catches my eye. Colas de caballo (pink throat morning glories) bloom everywhere.

Red tunas ripen on the nopales. I pick some and eat them out of hand. A friend will make syrup and jelly from these cactus fruits.

Lower left, a cholla blooms. No cactus has sharper spines nor attaches itself more aggressively to careless passers-by.
In All the Pretty Horses, Cormack McCarthy captures their indifferent cruel nature:

...they passed a stand of roadside cholla against which small birds had been driven by the storm and there impaled. Gray nameless birds espaliered in attitudes of stillborn flight or hanging loosely in their feathers. Some of them were still alive and they twisted on their spines as the horses passed...

Just over a mile out, I overrun my available energy. I limp back to my car, exhausted, sun-warmed, joyful at the encounter between my healing body and the healing land.