The drumming rain surrounds the little adobe this summer eve. In the morning the rising sun soaks the clouds in radiant light. The sun finally breaks from shadow, and dark golden light warms the window. Just before everything awakens, I take a morning stroll smelling the wet sage and creosote. The red rock landscape is burning fire red in morning twilight. Thunderclouds hug the mountains in the distance.
All these mourning doves have made their encampment around my quarters, enclosed by a few cottonwood. Around 8 or 9 P.M. a mourning dove flies into the door hatch and pokes its feathery head in. Another one follows, and they stay there for a while making their noise. Those pleasant birds are very charming to hear.
Tonight the constant rain awakens sensations of primordial desert. As the rain taps the roof, I think of the dawn and the dusk, and how thunderstorms travel the Colorado Plateau, always seeming to follow the sun into the west.