Monsoon Time
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 Local Time
First taste of a storm
on the lips of the moon, wind
roaming lost in the foothills and midnight
holds its breath. Tomorrow’s news
rumbles in the distance
while music from the borderlands plays on
a radio tuned to dreams. The kitchen clock
says rain is due, the headlines in the clouds
won’t commit to moisture
or to justice. Darkness breaking open,
secrets in all directions, thunder beats
on Heaven’s door, hummingbirds asleep,
and hawks nesting close to the sky
keep one eye open
to be ready
when the first drop falls.
Beth
Cloudlight on the ridgeline, dust
yellowing below, blue wind
in all directions and a blind spot where
the sun should be. It’s been six months
since anybody saw the lady
whose mind escaped her when she fell
and the turquoise car in her driveway
is the only sign
of life today. She used to sit
outside and chat, took her dog a block
and back, complained a little
or a lot – it always was the same – and when
she came home from being cared for
turned a monsoon’s shade of mean.
Some days another car
parks next to hers, some days the silence
that surrounds her house
cries out for understanding. It must
be comfortable living
with air conditioning and cats, window blinds
down, listening for
a storm to break and rain
to be delivered to her door in cups
just large enough for her to stir some thunder in.
Night’s Music
One-twenty-eight AM, the sky can’t sleep,
radio tuned to starlight, time
to be part desert
where music crosses over from
a major to a minor key.
And it is beautiful to hear the sadness
when an accordion dreams,
the sound of distances collapsing
into melody that nests
in the ear. There’s an electric sparkle
in the dark, language
with no passport gaining entry to the night
and monsoon weather playing
through an echo chamber in the clouds.
Ay ay ay, spare a thought
for the rain, for a lost streak of lightning
that can’t find the way back home.
Forecast
The forecast for tomorrow is for more of yesterday.
Temperatures and confusion
above average, monsoon and medications,
forgetfulness gathering
in the morning sky
and constant vigilance for stormclouds
in the kitchen. Sunrise
five-thirty-seven, the nurse
and clear skies due
on Tuesday. Flash flooding in the mind
where memory once was, but there’s music,
always music
keeping time. At seven-thirty-two the sun
remembers to go down.
Thursday is the day
the therapist is due, arriving on a streak
of lightning. She’ll make it rain,
ease aching muscles
and when a dust storm breaks she’ll sweep
the air clean with a broom.
Migration Dream
Ninety-eight degrees and a grosbeak
looking in the back window; nine AM with no way back
from dreaming when the solid world
alights on a branch so slender
it bends to the will
of the sun. A scene directly from
the spirit world: a mixed flock
leaving mountains behind
gracefully scattered, grouped in such
variety the light could not identify them,
they winged with dusk
in sight and pulled a tree
uprooted, branches held by beaks,
with majesty across the sky.
Waking on the flyway,
migration beginning, waiting
for monsoon thunder
while daily highs climb from
seeing to distraction and
the orange flash of one
bird among the many
on their way
pulling sunshine up by the roots.
The Storm of August 25th
Clear sky today, sunlight flowing slowly
where yesterday’s dry flood
advanced from east to west and left
the traffic blind. Pull over,
the alert advised, to the edges of the world.
Nothing stops fate
when it’s four thousand feet high. It looked yellow,
was dirty, and soft
like a bear. Yesterday had no five
o’clock. Time was dust. But more
to come as wind
pulled trees out by their roots and set
the scene for rain that was
so happy when it fell
it kissed the desert back to life.
Quiet now, not even
TV’s meteorologist to explain that
it was darkness with a beating heart.
