Summer Rain in the Desert

The desert is parched, thirsty, seemingly lifeless. Saguaro cactus trunks with their spiny ribs accordion pleated close together are shrunken inward trying to hold on to what little life sustaining fluid they have within themselves, waiting out the dry times, waiting for the life giving rain. Prickly pear cacti are shriveled up, pads hanging down, yellow and rumpled. Waiting. Only the lizards and an occasional rattlesnake move about. Oppressive heat keeps the human population indoors in their air conditioned haciendas, or quickly dashing form house to air conditioned automobile. Waiting.

A little cloud appears over the eastern mountains. It is still too small to give any rain but is a harbinger of the approaching monsoon season. The next day another cloud comes, a little bigger, more billowy but still too small in the vast expanse of cobalt blue sky to do anything. On the following day a whole tribe of clouds appear on the eastern horizon. As they rise above the mountains they delay the appearance of the sun just a little. But not for long. The sun comes up and pierces them with it’s heat daggers, dispersing them, scattering them. As more clouds drift in from across the eastern mountains they mass together into impressive thunderheads, even daring to blot the sun out temporarily. A celestial battle begins between the power of the sun and the persistence of the clouds. Who will win? The sun with it’s fierce heat threatens to dry up the clouds before they even have a chance to water the earth.

Looking towards the north I see a massive thunderhead, brilliant on the top, reflecting the sun but on the bottom it is dark and heavy with rain. It is releasing it’s rain. I see the streaks of rain descending towards the earth, but the sun is too fierce. Halfway between earth and sky the descending rain stops. The sun has won the battle today. The sun is evaporating the rain and not permitting it to fall to earth.

More clouds from the east join the celestial battle. They build thunderhead mountains and angrily jab the desert floor with lightning bolts. They blot out the sun and defiantly open up their floodgates. Today they are winning and the desert breathes a sigh of relief.

The first raindrops are slow in coming, having been pent up so long. But after a few minutes blistering raindrops are pounding the pavement of the city, running down the streets, flooding the streets ankle deep, hurrying to the dry washes and arroyos, wanting to fill up the Rillito. Rivulets are cascading down the mountain sides, twisting, churning, making new channels, joining other rivulets and their tumbling torrents are crashing down, filling all the arroyos and canyons, hurrying to the Rillito. The Rillito is becoming a muddy slurry.

On the desert floor the saguaro are sucking up the raindrops as fast as they can, to fill up their hollow ribs. They are expanding their trunks making space for as much water as they can hold, making it last until seemingly forever.
The rain is over and the sun returns to rule. The only evidence of rain is the fatter saguaro trunks and the swirley patterns in the sand of the dry washes caused by the rushing water.