The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher

July 4, 2025

The living, breathing conveyor that is the monsoon arrives with its geologic organism of rain. Mexico slides into Arizona, which in turn rushes back into Mexico in a pulsing, thrashing penetration of elementals—air and water meets fire and earth.

I say this at the start of every monsoon: Rain is a holy thing in the desert. The desert raises water to the level of a sacrament, blessed by wind and the bone dust of those who have come and never left, those who have knelt and wet their brows with water enough for two fingers.

Last night, the first conveyance of the season unloaded a third of an inch of rain onto the Mule Mountains while I led our weekly creative writing workshop in Tucson. Me, and six women, reading and listening and critiquing. One woman writes of her life on the Arizona-Mexico border and the human trauma of immigration that challenges her faith yet informs her art. Another tells a story about how a girl’s religious childhood couldn’t save her but how she might instead save the world through the simple acts of hope, love, and composting. And still another, a young woman from Jordan, whose family there climbs the rooftops of their homes each evening to watch Israeli and Iranian missiles streak across the night sky, turns Arizona sunsets into poetry.

Thinking about all this, I have mixed feelings on this Independence Day with its parades and fireworks, backyard barbecues in red, white, and blue. But one thing is certain in my mind: In Hell, even the damned have the hope of Heaven.

Lucifer Hummingbird. A female Lucifer Hummingbird topped off the month of June at species #78. Then, on the first day of July, a Violet-crowned Hummingbird (below), like a manifestation of hope itself, ushered in the month of monsoon chubascos.