Two Poems by David Chorlton

Benson to Paradise

 

A mesquite wind takes hold

of the swallows looping

behind a barn

and blows clear across miles

of grass and ocotillo

to the mountains

where rain-light alternates with shadows.

 

At the end of a straight road south

the darkest clouds break open

to let the warm air shine

on rising dust

from farmland balanced

on the hope for rain

 

as a Northern harrier dips

low enough to chafe

the desert scrub

beside the slow and stony turns

 

leading into a sheer

grey sheet of sky

with lightning for a guide.

Bats at the Window by David Chorlton

Kitchen Window in the Walker House

 

Hummingbird traffic is heavy

around the glass feeder suspended

from a wooden arm extending

into sunlight. Beyond it

 

is the incline with juniper

and alligator bark

ending in branches tangled where the sky

shines between them at the ridge

the deer cross before

 

they come down, stopping now and then

to look around, across the stubble

and the stones. So many

Magnificents come and return,

 

a Blue-throat, a doe,

Mexican jays in the broken grass,

and at seven thirty-five

 

the Elf owl calls

at the onset of that same darkness

miners brought up from the mines

a hundred years ago

 

when it stuck to their hands

and would not wash away.

 

David Chorlton was born in Austria, grew up in Manchester, England, and went to live for several years in Vienna before moving to Phoenix in 1978. Arizona’s landscapes and wildlife have become increasingly important to him and a significant part of his poetry.