SMOKE AND RAIN

Through the smoke and rain, lightning struck into the mountain's box canyon. A canyon become smoke stack.

The smoke was not from some industrial pit of Mordor, or from the mines of yesteryear, but wildfires to the Southwest, burning for weeks.

But still our homes were tainted, a slightly stick breath restricting malignancy.

With the summer monsoon comes the Southwest wind, carrying the smoke straight here. And the promise of rain.

A promise in light, in lightning, corroborated in thunder.

Followed by a potent silence under sublime gray skies pierced by gray topped mountain ridges.

Still, the smoke.

It begins to rain, hard.

The gray of dusk takes the sublimity to black.

The smoke is gone, but still the malignancy lingers.

It will for awhile.

Ah, the Rain.