As Saad told me, pointing down to our feet where qatta, desert grouse, were moving over the stony ground. I could not see them for some minutes, so much did they resemble the brown-black scatter of stones. Don't write that down. He tells me of the mystery of domesticated goats, why they are white and black, unlike their cousins, their ancestors, the ibex, who are invisible against the rock cliffs they climb. An animal taken from its environment may lose its natural color.
Color is a defining principle of place.
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