Shadows
The agave's shadow has a hundred spears
each one pointing away
from the sun, and the ocotillo's shadow
runs along the ground
like spilled darkness
while the shadow of the palo verde breaks
open where it falls. Through dunes
shadows move as liquid,
filling depressions
until they overflow
and all the sand is purple. Fingers of rock
are always half shadow,
half flame. Only rivers
have no shadow at all, staying close
to the earth
in the manner born into those who dare
run through barriers at night
when darkness
is a second skin.
The Hours
The postman climbs from his bicycle
to deliver the news.
The radio clears its throat
and coughs out an announcement.
Then the phone call: I'm shattered.
And the caller breaks
into a thousand pieces
that ring against a cold tile floor.
It's the same war
with new adversaries,
the countdown of yet another species
to extinction,
famine riding drought
hard toward the finish line.
But there is still the sound of water
coursing through the pipes,
the other station
playing music a hundred years old,
and the electronic clock
with a song for each hour.
At six the recording plays a warbler,
at seven a thrush, twelve birds
a day, seven days
a week, while faith
is a traveler on quicksand
and hope is a fool on a stone.
Christmas Bird Count
Twenty pigeons gather on the shed's old roof
to catch the early sun
that burns into their feathers
while forty starlings glisten
on the frost covered lawn.
Doves by the dozen
watch from the power lines
with a glow in their breasts
and trees that stay green
fill with the sound of verdins.
It is winter until noon,
then the temperatures rise
and we move beyond seasons
for a few balmy hours
until nightfall
when the televisions bring the other news,
never mentioning the pelicans
seen in Tucson, the shrikes near Yuma
or, at the edge of Phoenix, the cormorants
unaware they are in a desert.
Drive hard and stay free, says the voice in the box,
free as the hawk
that flies low every day in the city
over traffic and business
with fifty inches of silence in its wings,
the colour of rust
in a red, white and blue time
when screens flash
orders to shop like a hero.
September Flights
Soon the starlings will arrive in hoards
and a hawk alone
will circle on the city thermals
while for now the summer species
are navigating stars
on their way to a foreign season
and the Black-chinned hummingbird
makes way for Anna's
to hover at the porch
where sweet water hangs. Then at dusk
the bats make hairpin turns
beneath the streetlamp
snatching insects from the air
and sweep toward the moths
that come out of the dust
and shade. From the window
by our dining table
we watch red lights
rise into the sky
at each departing flight, thinking
of migration and the warblers
caught in unexpected wires
strung carelessly across
a once familiar universe.
Copyright © 2002 David Chorlton
