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A Calendar of Changes
The March winds blow away
more of the city each year
and planners meet in April
to decide on replacements
for what has been lost.
It happens so quickly, the vanishing
of the Spanish style houses
that came down to make room
for a tower in which people daily
give up their identities at the door,
the filling in of public spaces
downtown where the dreams of a committee
become the nightmare of the people,
and the planting of rezoning signs
instead of trees. We don’t know
in March what the city will be like
by June, only that the heat
will have moved in to stay
until the cool stars of October
glow above a skyline growing into them.
Tuning in to Phoenix Radio
Callers to the talk show
on a local radio station
want to build a wall so wide
and tall it keeps foreigners
on their side
where they can choose between
what they want to run away from
and revolution.
The hostility in their voices
suggests they are the ones
drinking undrinkable water,
looking for jobs that don’t exist,
with bandits for a government.
Day after day they dial
the host to say they’ve had enough,
it’s war, it’s a threat
to a way of life more sacred
than justice, where prosperity
is a birthright. Such anger
as theirs can’t be argued against,
can’t be stilled
with reason or compassion,
can’t be blocked
by a wall. I listen for a while
out of interest then switch
to Radio Fiesta, where the longing
in the music sounds like
happiness and the happiness
is weighted down with sorrow
which in its turn
cares little on which side of the border
it finds a voice to express
the sweetness of wanting the inaccessible.
David Chorlton was born in Austria, grew up in England, and spent several
years in Vienna before moving to Phoenix in 1978. He enjoys listening to very old music, birding,
and hiking in the Arizona landscape. Along with poems in magazines, he has a list of chapbook
publications with Places You Can’t Reach (Pudding House Publications, 2006) being the latest,
and recent books: A Normal Day Amazes Us (Kings Estate Press, 2003), Return to Waking Life
(Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2004), and Waiting for the Quetzal (March Street Press, 2006).
Email: David Chorlton
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