Late Monday and dark falls but light
still breaks through the sky over the road to the east. Clouds pushing
in from the west, dark grey jowls along the edge of the dying sky jitter and spit.
Follow me out over the wide earth they would, past the mountains,
but apart from a few front runners, water just can’t keep up with the drying wind.

Still, rain sputtered against the hills all day. In the slip stream of the car
rabbit brush flicked yellow, shaking out the unaccustomed shower.
From ridges, wet tunneled down to the belly of the plateau
toward the Columbia, rills, rivulets, old basalt scars bubbling again. A coyote
streaked by leaving a vapour trail. Slap and tingle, rain at high speed,an open window,

the smell of sage curled over the hood and tumbled
bonelessly into the back seat. But with all that, it was the horizon that grinned.
Under the lip of a scout cloud tracking far out
along the eastern horizon a wedge of rainbow showed
south and another to the north. Widely spaced coloured teeth: as I drove
between them, over the tongue of the horizon, the last of the light gleamed.