The Burning Kind of Heat

Only a month ago random seeds of snapdragons found their roots in the sandy soil of my cactus garden and  blossomed into beautiful clusters of lippy-mouthed flowers, ignoring the prickly thorns and rubbery leaves bumping up against their own delicate green.  Two days ago, I carefully pulled their crispy corpses from amongst the thriving cacti, their life force having been sucked dry. Nature is simultaneously wondrous and devastating, the Arizona desert, hellishly relentless in July, stocking every living thing … I’m desperate for a few breaths of moist, cool, salty, divine ocean air.