SLIPPING

The sky was weeping mercilessly

the evening we entered New Mexico.

 

Staring skyward, palms uplifted to the sonorous, wet falling,

I felt a slipping in my heart –

heavens unbalanced –

this desert – too green too green.

 

I saw the climate wandering, unhinged;

arroyos surging with mud.

 

Tests. Experiments.

 

I dreamt an explosion – saw the searing white blast,

withering of birds (mountain jays, golden eagles);

tasted the acrid stench of crisped juniper.

 

The next day an atomic physicist’s dream of death

shadowed our steps along Los Alamos’s Boyo trail –

steep-walled box canyon once witness to flash & blast –

small bombs testing nuclear containment –

while dead-end geology and weather drove us back –

thunderclouds surging overhead.

 

This is not a test texts read that night.

Flash floods, flash floods,

be prepared to evacuate.

 

This was not a riddle in so many syllables.

 

Imminent incident. Flash flood. Early September.