For Each Season

6–10–16

Today, after many years of weathering so many storms,
my beloved star pattern umbrella…
originally purchased at Fashion Nation on 13th Ave,
Once upon a Denver…
finally succumbed to the gentle weight of a steady and soft desert rain.

The thin, damp skin of it folding into itself,
with a pause of not entirely shut.
A tremulous final breath, released in whisper: “goodbye”.

I knew there was no finer way, for a faithful umbrella to die.

The moisture summoned the large red insects
which so closely resemble cockroaches,
but somehow are not.
These are more solitary than the small swarming pests of the cities.
They will often stay still as sentinels, even when I move,
and their shadows have a stealth which precedes their motion.

These are not the brazen beasts of the slum,
who fortuitously wake us with skin crawling twitches of scurry.

I knew it would rain. There’s nothing like desert rain.

You can smell the oily resin of soaked chaparral
more than an hour before the first drop,
the humidified medicine of it becomes suddenly succulent.

It is then that you prepare for the rain patter splatter foot dance…

There is no mystery to weather here.
Each day it is often the same: Sun. Warm-Hot.
When the monsoon comes early,
when you are given such sultry pretense of storm,
and seduced by the anticipation of parched earth;
knowing the sand soil
cannot absorb like other types,
and easily becomes inundated…

THIS is cause for pause and celebration!