Deluge at Big Bend

by Ed Ruzicka

Photo by Valerie Stanley

Deluge at Big Bend

To the river, to the gulches,

down into the crusted,

wracked roots of longing

comes a furious, lashing rain,

lightning-sudden, pounding

as horse hooves.

Juniper, oak, rear and wrench,

crack backwards, whinny.

The next morning eternal

stillness seeps back in.

Quail, sunk in gullies,

peck through sand.

Hawks kite inside

crystal gyres

and incremental shadows

stretch out from under black ants,

from wild oats, from pinyon

and inside the blue cloaks

of cliffs in a mountain range

that marks eons in strata.

And the only blessings left

come in long, cool coos

from the chests of doves

who gather over the river

where willows drape

into a swollen current.