The rain plips

onto the gutter

plastic shaking with each gentle drip

slow and tender,

parted lovingly from the edge of the rooftop,

and plummeting to flatten into the stream below,

slithering through the roof-edge pipes

to tumble down in ephemeral grace:

a mayfly waterfall

to be sucked up into the clay earth

beneath the trimmed lawn

the sound is otherworldly

it does not belong in this desert,

where all water is an artifice of man

somehow, in this too-green spring

i hear the echoes

of the monsoon plopping steadily onto the thin metalwork of the steps

outside my grandfather’s bungalow

the ones that spiral up to a sharp balcony of slippery ceramic

the cool air wafts through the open windows

onto my forehead

the rain picks up, the thunder rolls

from one end of the sky to another

like a bowling ball; i laugh

the world is a riot of verdant abundance –

there is too much.

this is a land of salt and sand and redrock,

and it is not mine.

but today –

perhaps i have brought the monsoon with me

and it has escaped my heart

it sings of family and beauty and wet fairystools

it is a traveler, passing through,

telling tales of india and austria and bali

and leaving, just as soon as it arrived

there is a spider clinging to droplets between the mesh on my window

he is upside-down and backwards,

and black against the rainwater and the green –

oh – he has disappeared behind the slats of my window

he is gone, now