Roadrunner Meditations – a poem by David Chorlton

Roadrunner Meditations

Saturday; the no-news channel morning show
has animals in far away locations. The world is still
the world there.
                         And outside in the back yard
are quail who like to roll in the dust
where grass used to be. There is bad news
somewhere, but the white scent
of jasmine drifts across the front door
and declares a few square feet of peace.
There’s no way back
                                  into the dream that ended
with a dog’s bark at daybreak. Some
dark wisdom disappeared. The minutes slow dance
from six to eight to ten. A cheetah
watches for prey between the trees. A sloth
hangs upside down from a bough.
Suddenly a streak
                             of patchy sunlight runs
across the lawn at the speed of an idea escaping.
There’s a mean streak to his elegance.
Did the dream hold any answers
to the questions of the day?
                                           It flicked its tail and ran.
Don’t ask where to. Never question
sunlight when it flies.

*

In the ditch back
of the drug store, lizards like
the grasses dry and weeds
that don’t take long to disappear. Here are waste paper,
plastic cups, boxes
filled with nothing but the wind and whatever’s left
of newsprint blankets: someone’s
overnight address.
                              It’s a good place
for passing through, damn
the lack of scenic in the scenery, this
is where survival’s crest
stands proudly between the forehead and the sky.
This place without ambition,
where heat pools on the ground and shadows
run for their lives
                            is the promised land for him,
a dusty world that no one
else will claim.

*

Straight ahead between two moods
a desert path lifts one step
into light and
one back into darkness. Philosophy’s been here,
so has faith,
                  but both got lost
on the way down
into the arroyo. Shady now, and on the rocks
balanced above walls dissolving,
                                                    making space
for new ones as the earth pushes hard
from beneath
is the sudden insight
                                 into who and why
and where it all became this here and now.
Hurrying behind a dry mesquite as though
time itself were chasing him
he disappears.
                       The light opens for him
to pass and closes behind him when he’s gone
to where he’s looking back
at what the world would be
without him.

*

Wind and nighthawks beneath the stars
and it’s quiet as worry in the kitchen, quiet as darkness
passing through the yard. The window worries
that its frame won’t hold, the back door
worries that its hinges
will come loose to fly off down
the wash, and the left shoe
worries that the right one will walk away on its own.
Come dawn,
                    time for starting over,
and each time the Roadrunner appears
he’s a surprise, he’s
                                a lost thought trying
to find the question
it’s an answer to.

*

There’s a fine trail to take
for walking with only
the ground underfoot for company. Nobody here
talks about the soul,
                               gives instructions
on how to be alone, or to look inward. 
Clear sky, blue
all the way to eternity. Stop,
and the view of distant mountains says this world
never ends. 
                   The mind can fly
from here, the body has to walk. And unexpectedly
breaking through
the desert’s revery with a yip and a coo
comes the Roadrunner’s call
                                               in the key of mindfulness.
He’s concentration running
and it matters not at all
that the rocks around him
have become
                    meditations turned to stone.

*

He was here, that much
is certain but where he’s gone nobody
will say. He’s good at making mystery
of a sudden appearance on the back wall and then
turning fact to fiction
                                  with a flick
of his tail and an updraft of light
that lifts him to the roof. He might return
tomorrow or
                    not for several months; he’s no
messiah, neither does he stop
to be admired. Religions don’t explain
where he comes from, where
he goes and whether that is food
                                                     or indecision
in his beak. It’s a lifetime’s work
to wait for the improbable
when his return could never be
as beautiful as dreaming it.

David Chorlton is a European now anchored firmly in the Southwest. He grew up in Manchester, lived several years in Vienna, and later adjusted to being in Phoenix where learned to look more attentively at the wildlife where city and desert overlap. A book is forthcoming from The Bitter Oleander Press, Dreams the Stones Have.