Three Poems by David Chorlton

Leaving Portal

The road slides from under snow
and away toward the frozen grasslands
lying pale against clouds
that have settled between the Peloncillos
and the Chiricahuas, barely higher
than the telegraph poles
from which hawks watch the stillness
before they thaw their wings and fly
into the day's breath with talons
sharpened by the cold.



New Year's Morning

A narrow road cuts
left and right between

the frosted trees
before tracks

have been made in the snow
that fell in the night,

and disappears
where an oak steps forward

with a whisper
at the tip of each branch.



A Study of Starlings

Holding to slender branches
that sway against the dark day's clouds

three hundred starlings wait
a second before they rise together
in the rain, as do

three hundred more
in the adjacent tree, and all combine

with grace, following
a common purpose.  Palm

to palm, they broaden and narrow
as they come down to take the hanging fruit
and then return

to the ominous light
as one mind in many hundred pieces.

David Chorlton is a frequent visitor to the Chiricahua Mountains in southeastern Arizona, and observer of birds in and around the city of Phoenix.  One of his poems appears in the anthology, BIRDS, from the British Museum and is available this year in paperback.