Finches in the Morning

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

At the feeders,

in the brisk of morning air,

they come

golden and fluffed

miniatures of the one sun

that everything is waiting for.

Finches cracking the hard shelled seeds

of flowers that radiated their own

kind of celestial joy during a summer

now passed into bittersweet memory.

In the lingering grey of this frigid dawn,

I ask the steam rising from

the kettle:

Do they long for the months

behind and ahead?

Do they count days until they

are once again swaying

like brilliant pendulums on man-tall

flower stalks?

Or, perhaps, they know every moment

as its own kind of happiness:

The look of the black and white stripes.

The width and weight.

The bulbous triangular shape.

The crackle as it breaks.

How far the shards fall and where.

The taste of the tender kernel bits.

The long streak of darkness that flies

so swiftly with equal awareness and intent

from the patient cover of cedar bough.

The air-piercing blades seeking

to grasp the small butter-faced streak

of feathers and flesh

that is now deep in the boxwoods

because it knew precisely

how and when

to change its focus and perch.

And I was there,

at the window,

loving this world,

Making no mistake in judging

the outcome;

each having needs

and a gift of service to

offer through their living,

and dying.

And me, and you?

Could we want anything more?

Could every moment matter this much?

© 2013-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Wild Life: New and Selected Poems" 

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