waiting for rain

It's a dry heat, they say.

Dry and dusty and choking.

The only living things are spiders, scorpions, cactus with long spiky needles, like the hair of the spiders creeping silently through the sand....and me...watching the thin cirrus clouds stretched across the sky in whispery strands of white, high and unreachable, dry as the earth below.

I gaze at the barren soil; dead without water, loose and carried by the wind. It reminds me of myself.

While contemplating all this, the heat rises in wavering reflections on the horizon, the illusion of moisture and pools of water, tantalizing but fruitless. There is no water here. The only moisture lies deep within the cactus, selfishly guarded and held captive in green flesh and body armor. If only wave upon wave of rain would fall and quench this land.

Flashing across my mind is an image of endless fields of wildflowers in vibrant colors, carpeting the desert in sudden prolific pigments, hiding the sand beneath greenery, set free by a mysterious boy a few years back, by the name of Nino. Torrential rains had resurrected the desert, coaxing dormant seeds to life, urging color upon the desert like a lover's kisses.

I run my fingers through the gritty sand and pray for rain.



Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled--Matthew 5:6