Two-Tailed Swallowtail Butterfly — Image by kenne
Mt. Lemmon in August
At least once or twice a week
We escape the desert heat
Driving the twisting highway
Where saguaros and dried
Desert plants cover the landscape.
Monsoon rains have soaked
The mountains not making it
To the lower elevations where
False expectations continue
To drive our conversations.
With each mountain road turn
The vegetation changes, first
The oak-grassland followed by
The pine-oak woodlands, chaparral
And the pine forest biomes.
A world apart from the desert below
Enjoying the cool mountain air
Clouds begin moving almost
Without motion soon the wind
Blows through the tall ponderosas.
Yet how gentle it seems the hikers
Knowing everything was just
A moment unable to conceive
The skyline on the ridge broken
By a darkening sky about to rupture.
— kenne
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