Today’s New Verse News: A YEAR’S LAST FLIGHT
by David Chorlton
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The waking skies of summer opened like a hand of cards spread daily when the white sun rose and a cloud held Heaven’s fire close to Earth while all was golden light behind Four Peaks. Each day broke into song against a stage set brightly for the doves and mockingbirds and flickers who arrived without a campaign slogan or a lie. Pigeons flocked together for safety while hawks and candidates hunted alone through dry heat and monsoons. Anniversaries flew by with months sliding down a rainbow to disappear the way time does when it has used up its energy and wants to sleep the winter sleep that follows an election when all that’s left are losers crying foul and birds lost in migration showing up at the most unlikely destinations. There is one late rain turning to mist on the south side of a desert mountain. And hummingbirds for whom each day is much the same as the one before it. They are driven by their unending appetites and swear allegiance to the sugar hanging from the sky.
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David Chorlton is a longtime resident of Phoenix with great affection for the desert. His newest book is Poetry Mountain published by Cholla Needles Arts and Literary Library in Joshua Tree, CA.