An Unexpected Chorus

Hereford, Arizona 

June 

Like an orchestra without a conductor,

the spring winds meandered

in a confusing atmosphere,

fearful of commitment 

to one season or the other.

They brought rain at the wrong time

of the year, but no one complained.

Long and deliberate, these storms

through the grassland, with cloudy days 

that looked like December, 

with distant lightning,

not what we would normally expect.

Such an unusual June it was,

a blessing that the heat didn’t rise 

too quickly, that wind blew softly at night,

that water from slow, circling clouds

came and went, came and went.

Awakened at 3:00 AM from my 

dreamscape into a light rain,

lying in a warm bed of combined solace 

and excitement, I listened to the splatter 

and distant rumble mix with the 

rancorous howling of a coyote chorus.

Then I remembered that whatever arrives 

from unexpected places, music comes with it.

From: Small Places, Big Places,

And Every Other Thing In Between 

Unpub. MS p. 50