IN THE BEGINNING was violet fire.

On the day of the summer solstice, the Sonoran desert

is aflame with the blossom of smoke trees that dot the

bajadas. You’d think flowers are not something likely

to be found in a place where it last rained months ago,

yet here they are — an embodiment of hope, an

anticipation of the July monsoon, which may or

may not arrive in time to keep these trees from

retreating into themselves for a few years.

Here’s how you program a smoke tree, a corona de Cristo, in bloom. Start with a cloud of dried and twiggy remnants of the previous season’s growth, the color and the size, but usually not the shape, of a molting camel. Pierce the smoke with a dense lattice of waxy, vaguely green new shoots. Scatter within the cloud hundreds of small clusters of flowers, each like a little maw,

deep Persian-indigo and primed with orange pollen, leaning out of a dun calyx studded with vermilion warts. Fashion the tip of each green shoot into a finger-long, needle-sharp thorn. Drag the completed ensemble to the middle of a dry wash. Make it June. Press “enter.”