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Pimeria Alta (IV)
Between the quince and the pomegranate tree
the mission’s father walks in peace, counting flowers and the souls
of workers with their eyes ablaze
in the presence of the blue robed Virgin
whose hands are pressed around a miracle
while a dove has chosen to nest in her crossed arms.
The night blooming of forty flowers
on a single cactus has left a perfume to mingle with that
of the candles that burned
while bats came to the garden and the ocelot
left tracks in the soft earth. The lowland fields
are a basin of sunlight
warming blossoms to life
as the first hour of prayer dissolves on tongues
salted with language from another world.
Pimeria Alta (V)
An odour flavoured with darkness
emanates from beneath the robes
a tall man wears, even when the midday sun
grinds him the way a stone grinds corn
on a metate. He counts without pause
the items in his care, from grain sacks
to chalices, and his pen never rests.
Numbers grow without the rain
absent for so long from the highly praised skies
that pass between his fingers
when he raises them in display: one for the bell,
two for the doors, three for the altars,
four for the seasons, ten for saguaros
in the yard, and a thousand ocotillo stalks
woven into fences that bloom
even torn from their roots. The hour for prayer
rings from the tower, drawing all who labour
to the cool interior
of a church decorated with shells and vines
where the stairs are assembled with mesquite,
the walls are mud and straw, and the face
on the carving nobody dares touch
has a smile from the Basque land,
the inventory and map of the countless wonders
it is said embrace the world.
Pimeria Alta (VI)
A lightning flash inscribes unrest
on a sky divided between the gospels and the grain,
the lizard’s gnarled back
and the soft streaks of blue on its belly, the sacred
datura and the sacred word, the scorpion’s sting
and a blessing, a promise and a sword,
the water in a baptismal font and the rain
whose first drops drive the priest inside
to his writing desk, where an unfinished sentence awaits him:
So, in good faith and with a heart still strong despite all that weighs
upon it, condemned to report a true account of all
that comes to pass in this land of transparency, and as your servant
in the face of encroaching rigours, I call upon my conscience
to inform you that despite the humility with which I have lived,
there is as I now write, a taste on the wind more bitter
than that of the rice I eat each evening
as the moths arrive at my altar bearing messages on their wings
of . . .
David Chorlton lived in England and Austria before moving to Phoenix in 1978. His paintings, mostly watercolour,
have been exhibited in Austria and the United States. Collections of his poetry include FORGET THE COUNTRY YOU CAME
FROM from Singular Speech Press, and OUTPOSTS from Taxus Press in Exeter, England. Essays and reviews have appeared
in The Arizona Republic, National Catholic Reporter, Poet Lore, and in several online publications. His chapbook, COMMON SIGHTINGS,
was a recent winner in the Palanquin Press Competition. Recently David has had poems in 3rd Muse and Thunder Sandwich and
Adirondack Review, all online publications. He continues to appreciate most the Arizona landscape and its birds. Slowly,
he is beginning a new series of paintings in his visual arts life. He continues to paint in Phoenix, trying to discover
something lyrical between the high-rise buildings and the houses beneath them. This is his twenty-fourth year in Phoenix,
and he still struggles to adjust! David Chorlton grew up in industrial Manchester, England, before moving
to Vienna in 1971 and staying there for seven years. His travel around Europe during that time left him with
a full bank of impressions that continue to surface in his work. The Southwest provided the eye-opening experience
of stunning scenery and an awareness of nature that he was not prepared for. His short collection of poems, Common
Sightings, with a desert theme, won a Palanquin Press award in 2001, and a new book, A Normal Day Amazes Us appeared
in 2003 from Kings Estate Press.
Email: David Chorlton
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