Sonoran Baptism

Dear Friends in Other Places

We are still crispy dry 
ripe and ready to explode 
in flame
at the first dry lightning 
or careless butt

Even the Gila River
normally raftable
north of us
is just pools 
and river rock

But we keep going
pretending water will last forever

We found a creek last weekend 
just off the shore of a sky island
a forgotten defile
home of trogon
source of time
and temporality
and we slept on its spring-fed banks

Morning 
found us freezing 
naked
in its last deep pool 
beneath a mossy
waterfall

I want to play hot blues
and sing songs
of redemption
blood reunion
in a dancing mass
for that creosote-soaked
waft just now
soft as a cat's paw
poking at my cheek 

They will come
it said 
those belly dumpers
of hail and sweet rain  
those barbed and twisted
skewers of light
ionized violence

After staying up all night 
watching shooting stars
and listening to fiddle music
I woke to a promise
of cloud
a bass note
a distant concussion
the rushing and imminent
baptism  
teasing
not yet