larryhammer | quails call each to each / like liquid in hollow stones / across the dusky corral

Outside, it is an okay spring, as these things go -- not spectacular, generally warm but not hot. We got only a little rain this winter and so flowers have been restrained, even the cacti. Not dead drought, but definitely not a lively year.

Inside, it is a glorious spring, one doubly disconnected from the outside world: I've been pushing through I-hope-final revisions on A Desert Year* -- I'm down to a few dozen concerns to be addressed, of which only a double-handful or so require major rewrites if not replacements. Which means I'm halfway to living inside a detailed a record how this season rolled out in 2010** -- the first disconnect. Winter was wetter than average that year, meaning many more wildflowers, and the temperatures milder, meaning blooming later -- a second disconnect, to the tune of about three weeks after this year's events.

Or to put it another way, outside's spring sprung earlier. Not the cacti, who boomph on their own schedule thank you very much*** -- but the herbaceous guys, what there are of them, think it's definitely warmer. Last year, I had a vague sense of something similar, but I was immersed in classical Japanese and not paying that much attention.

The easy thing is to cry Climate change! -- especially since models all predict this corner of the country will get drier and hotter, as part of the global shift in patterns. I hope not, that this is just another variation in the noise -- because otherwise I'm reliving the last time we will have had a truly excellent wildflower season.****

The dog is disturbed:
outside that patio door,
languidly uncoiled
on flagstones warmed by the sun,
a rattlesnake slowly basks.

* Assuming I don't change my mind (again) and call it The Book of Desert Leaves: A Sonoran Year in Poetry.

** Plus occasional echoes of 2011, when I was filling in holes.

*** Tho' saguaros are already popping white WTF.

**** Future perfect subjunctive FTW.

---L.