Roadrunners

In the pink light, haloes of cloud form over the mountains; lightning, two valleys away, then, not an hour later, the explosion of thunder. The roadrunners pecking for breadcrumbs on the porch have long since fled into the rabbitbrush, into the endless ocean of grass. Driving in every direction down licks of red road, I have lost myself in a militarized topography; everything named after army units, generals, scouts, miners…The Dragoon Mountains,Cochise Stronghold; defunct Gleeson and Pearce, weird, rusty ghost towns, the only non-derelict structure for miles, the local school, its polished windows and well-kept lawn, a source of great local pride. No mountain monograms for these desiccated whistle-stops, no giant Q or C or W in bright white paint to mark the township's still functional sorta functional breathing, no carving for them into the planet's bark; and thus they are blesséd to me like no other; every successful city is a flimsy affair with civility, its eternalness, like Paris or Rome, mere hypocrisy. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, BUY REAL ESTATE! Hail follows rain. Nearby, the township of Sunsites, once billed as the safest spot to survive the inevitable nuclear winter, actually topped Soviet Russia's list of high-priority targets… Enter the Orange Duck Candidate. A haboob sweeps across the Valley of the Senile. In a week, the mountains have switched from brown to purple to green. The desert is human endeavour's most fitting graveyard; the slow bleaching, the gradual eroding into sand, the heat stifling sound as it leaps into the air. IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE. But it always does. Sulphur Springs Valley