This piece was just published in The Avocet, A Journal of Nature Poetry, Summer 2018. I’m sharing this with you not just as a poem, but also as a prayer. Please join me in doing a rain dance.

It’s Always Fire Season Now

Teasing cloud,
eiderdown quilt,
rolls in over
Cuyamaca Peak
toward the ranch.
No rain for months,
summer heat seeps.
My dogs and I
want to skip our
morning walk
around the loop.
Parched meadow
coughs dusty ground.
Butterfly bush wilts,
blooming sage droops,
oak leaves sag down.
Buckwheat, chemise,
pine needles brown,
crispy to the touch.
Might ignite at hint
of a spark. Pails full
of precipitation needed
to beat this drought.

I think I’ll do a rain dance.