Snowy Mountains and the deserts

It's always snowed in the mountains.

I remember as a kid watching the clouds pass overhead in the desert.

The storms would kick up dust, but no rain.

.

I remember that dust, one time,

like a tornado chasing my father's car home.

Oh, yes no rain reaches the desert floors,

but in the mountain it rains, and it snows!

.

Up in the mountains it would rain, (or snow)

and when that rain fell

or the snow melted in spring,

long silent rivers would grow.

.

They call those rivers Arroyos,

in the language of Spain

and when there is no rain,

they seem curvy roads leading down to a plain.

.

But those plains, those salt flats

are long dead seas,

and when it rains they fill to the knees.

And long sleeping frogs, fish and bugs,

wake up to feast,

their sleepy thirst finally slaked.

.

The water doesn't last long,

and much of it is salty,

but while there is water,

the desert is healthy.

.

What had been dry and brown, alive with sounds,

bursting with colors and green all around.

The blue sky above, and life everywhere,

where shortly before all had seemed so bare.

.

I remember desert storms as a good thing.

Christopher H. Holte