End of June

it was a setting sail
into a dry ocean
with a fiery course
through windy days
and still nights
dark nights filled
with screaming toads
and owls that longed
for the absent rain
even scavenging canines
yelled for it to return
it was a jumping off
into spicy evenings
when sagebrush sighed
at the end of the day
at the end of the heat
and sunflower musk
stirred in the cooling air
it was the time to
watch gourd vines
wind through the grass
much more slowly
than their serpentine kin
time to spot the devil's claw
holding its silky bloom
behind a cloud of
almost deadly perfume
it was the waiting
between storms rolling
in from the west
for lighting strikes
as threatening and
nerve shaking as
the strike of a rattler
in the tall bluestem
for the rain that
the nightly screams
summoned in the dark