Hot Desert Weather: Southern Utah Summer, a Poem

Malevolent day-star

drools a stream of golden heat

across the edge of the sky;

Pants its white-hot breath

across the land and burns

the sky to fiery blue.

Parched and arid,

blood-red painted

is the land.

Rocks--

worn thin from hot breath

on their necks,

And dust-devils play

where antediluvian streams

once ran.

It was the late 1980s, and I had decided to take my two daughters, then young teenagers, on a 3-week road camping road trip covering Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and both northeastern and southeastern California.

We left California via the northeastern route on interstate highway 80; traversed Nevada, and went on into Utah. In that state, we saw Arches National Park, then traveled farther east into Colorado, where we visited Mesa Verde National Park. After Mesa Verde, we strayed a bit off our path to take in the Four Corners Monument, which marks the spot where Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico converge. That footstep on the monument was the extent of our "excursion" into New Mexico!

Trying to get an unobstructed photo of the girls standing in four states at once was a 'trying' experience, so crowded was the attraction! The NGS (National Geodetic Survey) has an interesting article about a controversy there was about the location of the monument.

From there, we traveled to the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, then northward again to take in Zion National Park in southern Utah. It was there that this poem came about. Not only was it the peak of summer; but a heat wave was in progress as well.

Leaving Zion, we returned to California via the southeastern route, for a stop at Disneyland before concluding our adventure and returning home.

This poem was originally composed back in August of 1987, revised in January of 1996, and another minor revision was made in June of 2010.