Not a cloud in a blue blue sky
Be careful what you wish for.
Fruit trees curl inward in the heat.
Nothing escapes the sun
Old trees die, roots are deep
but not deep enough
to reach water.
Breathe the dust
that parches the nostrils.
In March
this place was gentle
lush with awakening
clouds of blooms in morning mist.
Southern California in July
or one hundred ten years ago, or at midnight, or under a clouded sky
is not the same place.
Timing is all.
I sing a rain song and push northward…