April Poem #25

None of yesterday's prompts did it for me yesterday, and I can't come up with a title, but that's okay. We got rain last night and it's still cloudy so there may be more in the offing. I'm sitting at my desk watching birds at the feeders, in a considerably better mood than last night or earlier today.

They always fly away when I come to the feeders,

not far, of course, since they’ll return

as soon as I turn my back and take a few steps.

It’s like two different restaurants a couple of feet apart:

one with cheap seed to fill the greedy masses

and the other offering only the best,

tiny glossy black nyjer seed for the finches, goldfinches,

that is, since the house finches

will eat pretty much anything—

Maison Pur et Délicieux next to McDonald’s.

McDonald’s needs refilling much more often.

I didn’t even notice the young goldfinch

on its feeder till I was just a forearm’s length away.

It flew when I hung the other feeder, and

I stood there a moment, enjoying the cool morning air,

the fragrance that follows rain,

the yellow trumpet-shaped flowers on a shrub nearby,

nearly as big as a goldfinch.

And then the little yellow bird came back.

With just the slightest glance at me, it settled on the feeder

and began pecking out seeds through the small black mesh

that screens out birds with larger beaks.

Just a baby, really, fluffy, with pale baby feathers

and no way to tell its sex, whether or not it would develop

the male’s dapper black cap, and only a hint

of the sharp black and white stripes to come later on its wings.

It ignored me as it fed, and I pretended to ignore it,

to be a garden statue. We had two minutes, maybe three,

of absolute grace, a morning benediction,

before it flew away.