by David Chorlton
A guest on the radio news show
claims to have found a poem
capable of saving the Earth. He reads
some lines by William Stafford
about watching swallows
before ending with a modest reflection
on stepping with care
through the world. Every April
a small group assembles
close to the stream
where a cottonwood casts
a dark green shadow on the water
that flows like hope
from year to year,
and each of us reflects on how we see
the signs around us. This passing
back and forth of words
is our ceremony, an annual
blossoming of thoughts held inside
ourselves all winter. We’ve been counting
sparrows and listening
to a glacier drip
into oblivion. We often rise early
to hear the mockingbirds
after staying up late reading
Edward Abbey who liked to speculate
on taking out the dams
built to power industry. Even that
meant stepping gently
through the world; it just
entailed clearing the way
before putting on an appropriate
pair of shoes.
David Chorlton lives in Phoenix where he writes and keeps watch for the birds in his urban setting. He likes to celebrate the desert in his work, but sometimes a cautionary tone intrudes as is the case in his chapbook The Lost River, published last year by Rain Mountain Press.
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