To experience monsoon fully
demands a metal roof.
Rain pelts down
no longer a liquid but a solid.
A steady roar obliterates.
Universe contracts to
casita—
tempest—
and me.
The Mustang Mountains are gone,
the Huachucas.
I stand
marooned by a deluge
at the core of a cataclysm—
wind, water and electrons.
Quaking, exulting
my body hums in darkness
glows with bolts of eerie light.
When I cannot
remember silence
rain lightens
wind lowers to a gale
then a breeze.
Southern sky brightens.
Thunder loosens
its grip on heaven,
moves off west.
Kicked up by raindrops and wind,
detritus litters the porch.
A black beetle drags
itself up out of rain.
In O’Donnell Creek’s once-dry streambed
rushing water fills a pool.
Night will be saturated with
the bleating clamor
of spadefoot toad orgies.
Music: Grand Canyon Suite – V. Cloudburst by Ferde Grofé
Janet Ruth
Janet Ruth is a NM ornithologist. Her writing focuses on connections to the natural world. Her sonnet, “A World That Shimmers,” won the True Concord Poetry Contest, was set to music and performed by True Concord Voices and Orchestra in 2023. Her book, Feathered Dreams was Finalist for the 2018 NM/AZ Book Awards. https://redstartsandravens.com/janets-poetry/