David Chorlton- Two Poems

Last Train out of Fairbank

 

One dark Saturday

when business was slow

the men who took this ground from the Apaches

rode away on the railroad they had built

without ever considering

it was worth giving back, even

with a breeze like today’s

and the smell of greasewood after rain.

 

 

Ghost Town in August

 

Nobody lives anymore

beneath this particular sky, or looks up

into the August clouds

expecting them to break before

the train pulls in

where the station used to be. As lightning

 

shakes sparrows from the grass

the stable rattles

and a grosbeak turns

electric blue in the mesquite bosque.

Then all the weather

 

moves inside: the calm

that follows every storm

fills the seats behind each desk

in the empty schoolroom.

 

 

 

David Chorlton is a transplanted European, who has lived in Phoenix since 1978. His poems have appeared in many publications on- and off-line, and reflect his affection for the natural world, as well as occasional bewilderment at aspects of human behavior. His most recent book, A Field Guide to Fire, is his contribution to the 2015 Fires of Change exhibition in Flagstaff, Arizona.