Monsoon Watch

Paintings In Costa Rica Photographs from the Southwest Chronicles: Poems from Arizona History Birds around the house To be remembered Midsummer Journal Arizona time - poems Monsoon Watch A poetry chapbook

Link to Roadrunner Meditations: 

https://amethystmagazine.org/2024/10/30/roadrunner-meditations-a-poem-by-david-chorlton/

 

 Link to Pages of Light: 

https://newversenews.blogspot.com/2025/06/pages-of-light-in-dark-times.html

 

 

Link to Intermezzos:

https://eunoiareview.wordpress.com/2025/08/23/intermezzos/

 

Link to Trailthoughts:

https://internationaltimes.it/trailthoughts/

Monsoon Watch

 

Dark spirit of desert skies, battle hymn

of weather, a year of time

condensed into minutes,

                                              wind finding its way back

to the world. The flood that leaps

over a mountain. And in the oaks where they gather

to endure it, light turning

into thunder on vultures’ backs.

        

(1)

The doves at three o’clock are waiting

out time before the heat

begins to doubt its purpose

                                                     and a few degrees slip

away behind the mountain. A lizard climbs

the back wall, another

climbs to the sun. Forecast in the balance,

monsoon’s due but so

is justice;

                how goes it for the people

resting out the afternoon beneath

a downtown bridge? Out of sight, out of mind,

take a detour to avoid

the burn marks on a soul the sight of them might leave.

 

(2)

Accordion tuned to the key of memory, window frames

alight, thunder in the stars

and a radio playing sadness to sleep.

A song begins

                          that has no end, the one

the border knows by heart

about darkness as the promised land

that won’t reveal who

it was promised to. Midnight trees

rattle their leaves,

a polka keeps time with the rain, and the rain

beats rhythm

                         by the drop.

 

(3)

Rainfall washes the Grey hawk’s call

out of the cottonwoods,

                                              a sudden wind

blows it back again. River with nowhere to go,

oaks bow to its passing. Red earth

flowing, lightning flash

in a snakebite sky.

Grass seeds sing inside the earth

where mammoth bones plough

history open. Century found,

century lost,

                      all gods float away together

on one current, the sins

disappear with the prayers.

 

(4)

A wing of shadow rises over

a stream that hurries on its way through

grasses in high country. Water singing, thunder

in the earth, a lake

                                   shaking free of its bed.

Sunlight runs downhill

to where all things

are captured, measured, and set free.

The deluge takes what it can carry

in passing through, and tangled in the boughs

of a Ponderosa Pine

                                     leaves a flash

of exhausted lightning.

 

(5)

Late afternoon, hummingbird o’clock,

a bush in the shade, and a Ladder-backed

woodpecker climbing the palm

that leans against light. Soon the sky will be

a playground

                         with no answer in sight

to the problems of the day. The stars

may be beautiful but

                                      the desert is just

a dry cough to the universe. It’s another warm night

to be sleeping outdoors

and it’ll rain or go dark before morning.

 

(6)

Sirens on a dark road

announce a weather change, wind  coming down

from the moon says

more of the same. Warmer for a day then

anybody’s guess

                                what follows: mesquites toppled,

pond water whipped to a frenzy, dust

masking mendacity. And there will be

road rage late at night, just the casual

picking of a gun from the glove compartment

or sudden acceleration

                                           to overtake the heat.

 

(7)

A barefoot corrido on the trail of work,

money’s never homesick

and there’s debris in the wake

                                                          of undocumented winds.

Temperatures rise, temperatures

fall, there isn’t a field guide to identify

who comes and who goes, the ones who are thirsty

with not much to do but thumb a ride

on passing time.

                               Showers of English, Spanish,

any language with a word

for trees or grass or rivers. Dry year, wet year,

new life, new country, there

but for the grace of storms

we go.

 

 

First published in Cholla Needles (Joshua Tree, CA)