Cloud Mountain<\/p>\n
El Paso, my surprising home, is bisected
\ninto east and west sides by the Franklin Mountains,
\nand bound on the south by the Rio Grande,
\nnestled in the pocket created by Texas,
\nMexico, and New Mexico’s intersecting borders.<\/p>\n
Spring’s relentless winds create walls of brown
\nclouds that spill over the peaks of the mountains
\nin waves of oncoming ocher dust that infiltrate
\neach crack and crevice of our home, lining
\nwindowsills in brown, clinging lines reminiscent
\nin miniature of depression times, grit that was
\npervasive and choking, people never fully feeling clean.<\/p>\n
Summer’s rainy season tamps down the dust,
\nwhite rain clouds approaching the east side
\nof the mountains and coalescing in wet mounds
\nthat mimic the spines of cacti-covered peaks, at last
\nspilling in abandon over the mountain’s west side.
\nGray rains pound the impacted desert soil in a visibly
\ncreeping wall, our coming year’s welfare dictated
\nby impassive, breaking, mountains of clouds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cloud Mountain El Paso, my surprising home, is bisected into east and west sides by the Franklin Mountains, and bound on the south by the Rio Grande, nestled in the pocket created by Texas, Mexico, and New Mexico’s intersecting borders. Spring’s relentless winds create walls…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":308,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/308"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40888"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40962,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40888\/revisions\/40962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}