| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | Rain in the Desert | | By John Gould Fletcher |
| | From “Arizona Poems”
THE HUGE red-buttressed mesa over yonder | |
| Is merely a far-off temple where the sleepy sun is burning | |
| Its altar fires of pinyon and toyon for the day. | |
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| The old priests sleep, white-shrouded, | |
| Their pottery whistles lie beside them, the prayer-sticks closely feathered. | 5 |
| On every mummied face there glows a smile. | |
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| The sun is rolling slowly | |
| Beneath the sluggish folds of the sky-serpents, | |
| Coiling, uncoiling, blue black, sparked with fires. | |
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| The old dead priests | 10 |
| Feel in the thin dried earth that is heaped about them, | |
| Above the smell of scorching, oozing pinyon, | |
| The acrid smell of rain. | |
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| And now the showers | |
| Surround the mesa like a troop of silver dancers: | 15 |
| Shaking their rattles, stamping, chanting, roaring, | |
| Whirling, extinguishing the last red wisp of light. | | | | |
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