Monsoon Season

August in the valley keeps a clock. Clear mornings, the build by noon, the dark wall over the divide, and by three the rain that empties the patios and fills them again twenty minutes later. The locals carry no umbrella. An umbrella is a confession that you did not expect the thing that happens every day.

This is the quiet half of the year, the one the postcards skip. The river is low and loud. The aspens are still green and do not yet know what is coming.

We prefer it. The work of keeping a record is easier when no one is watching the place you keep it.