A wall of slow spiraling cloud,

a great grey hand,

comes in low against the skin of the earth

swallowing the mesa,

sky, and all that proceeds it–

the West has sent its claim for the mountain.

And as first rain drops heavy and loud,

smell of December bursts full into the air,

only here, here artemisia sings strongest

not in early clutch of winter

but, like now,

in spring.

I drink desert storm

and laugh at the strangeness of time,

dusting of snow on far hills while

a flowering plum turns pink.