Desert Rain

by Ann Hunkins

Seven nights of rain in the high desert.
Steam puffs off flowering chamisa,
woody apache plume, curled gramma grass.
Even the shattered granite softens
to take raccoon and squirrel tracks.
A Townsend¹s Solitaire rises through sunlight
wing flutter flash, catch and release brilliance.
Dark side of the hill cold. Sun slips through valleys,
lights up tops of two tall ponderosas, candles.
The warm side slopes up in bright red soil
toward clothed mountains, needles silver with rain,
mist in the hollows, juniper berries shining sapphire.
No one here complains about the wet.