YOUR SOLITUDE!" I cry at the woman, outraged by her presumptions. "I used to have this place all to myself. Now I can't take a step without bumping into you, or into some dumb klutz in a hard hat, or into I.J.Haynes, or flotillas of noisy helicopters. Where am I supposed to escape to any more?"

"'Escape?' 'Escape' is a bourgeois affectation. How many people on earth, even in their wildest dreams, could conceive of such a luxurious and self-pampering retreat as this?"

Too much, already! -- I commence a really fast burn. "Well, if that's the case, what are you doing out here?"

"I'm staring into this puddle at an inch-long vitreous dwidget with a slim tail, quivering feathery legs like celia, a hammer-shaped head, and two black dot eyes."

"And of course you know exactly what it is."

"It's a fairy shrimp."

"And naturally you know exactly how they wind up in a temporary puddle on a dry plain miles from any lake, stream, or ocean."

I have left myself wide open, and she is more than delighted to slip in the knife.

"Actually, I do. Fairy shrimp, and those clam shrimps you may have noticed in the stock pond, are crustaceans who are also called branchiopods. Their appendages are both mouths and gills: they eat and breathe through their feet. Their eggs are stored in a brood chamber whose walls are transformed into a protective capsule called an ephippium. When the shrimp molts, the capsule sinks to the bottom and lies dormant. If the pond evaporates, no sweat -- the capsule can withstand drying or freezing. Wind often blows the egg sacs miles in every direction. The suspendedly-animated eggs inside can overwinter (that's hibernate), or survive summer drouths (that's estivate). When it finally rains, they wake up and get on with the show."

She smirks -- what a smart ass. And who is this obnoxious woman anyway, and why is she compelled to ruin my equanimity with her hostile presence?

"Does that answer your question, Mr. Nichols?"

I fumpher: "Yes ... sure ... I guess so . . . "

"Well, then why don't you sit down, bag that camera, take a load off, relax. I think there's enough mesa here for both of us."

It's either that, or stalk off in a huff. So, awkwardly, I settle myself a few feet away, wrap arms around my knees, and assiduously avoid looking at her. Together, we stare into the Twin Rocks Puddle. At first, I can't see a thing, I'm too confused. But after a while I settle down, and various creations come to life in the shallow pool. Greenish-umber algae -- or is it plankton? -- coats stones and pebbles on the four-inch-deep bottom; small insects, probably mosquitoes in their larval stage, cling to the underside of the water skin. Their transparency almost hides them, yet sunlight, reflecting through their clear bodies, casts shadowy outlines against the pebbly floor of the pool.

Black, oval-shaped water beetles, pumping hairy flippers, are the witless monsters of this micro-world. When our shadows darken their universe, they scramble for the muck and furiously dig themselves into hiding.

Their existence here, along with that of the clams, the fairy shrimp, and the tadpoles, intrigues me. Even a translucent mosquito larva attached to the water skin seems reason enough to marvel. Seldom do we take our hats off to the small wonders which clutter all natural experience. Certainly the electric company's environmental impact statement makes no mention of these hardy little souls. "Think of it," the woman murmurs. "Life takes so many chances in temporary environments ... and it has repeatedly taken those chances, in triumph, on this mesa, for millions of years."

Lest she wax too maudlin, a bit of branchiopodal doggerel comes to my mind:

They hibernate,
They estivate,
Their hearts almost don't palpitate;
They never seem to copulate
And would not try to masturbate --
In fact, they simply vegetate.
Thanks God they don't pontificate
Upon their stupid micro-fate
Just because the rains are late.
Instead, they sleep until some date
When winter, or the drouths abate,
And then, without a moment's wait
They start right in to pullulate!

Text from the book "On The Mesa" by John Nichols, Copyright © John Nichols.
Reprinted with special permission from John Nichols - All Rights Reserved.
Pottery from Mata Ortiz, Mexico. All pottery pieces are © COPYRIGHT PROTECTED BY INTERNATIONAL LAW and were provided by Barbara Goffin