Awakenings
Dark north, dark east, a Great-horned
owl shakes loose the sky
from underneath her wing. A rustling
on the ground between
lantana and the bush with small blue
flowers, a low hum in the distance
from roads that never sleep
and a thread of dark silence
running down the wash
from recent rains still searching for
a way into the earth.
A fire in the core
is where time goes to thaw. There’s no way back
from a million years of darkness
burnt away, mammoth bones to dust, no language
to record the years
but first light on the surface while
flames speak to each other about
magma’s first ambition; today
the fire wants nothing but
to be a sun.
Haze across the four peaks
and a blue that shines
down on the desert mountain where all trails
lead to sky. There’s a buzz in the light
that flows across the boulders
where wrens are
and moisture on the branches
running green
along the bed of an arroyo freshly stirring
itself awake. Bees clinging
to a shadow, urban streets below
lying at rest from fitful dreams,
kestrel setting shivers free and watching
from a mesquite bough.
A warbler at the window, thrashers
on the grass, no distance
between domestic and the wild
when night has left a fingerprint
on the backyard wall,
a metal strut moved aside
for a coyote to ease himself across
and investigate space that once
was in his native land. There’s past
where the present ought to be.
It happens without notice,
something quiet
wakes up and wipes the history
from its eyes. Rock formations
awaken bearing scars
of lightning, and memories
return as the moth does
who rests on tree bark
still wearing last night’s moonlight.
David Chorlton is a longtime resident of Phoenix. Over the decades his writing has helped him adjust to the desert and its wildlife to the point that he now considers the desert to be the best teacher of making use of limited resources, whether natural or artistic.
Amethyst Review 