All summer I have watched the goldfinches feasting,
first upon sunflowers, perched
at the edge of a dial, tucking in
their sleek bright heads to pluck
the oily seeds.
Then upon the cosmos.
What is there? Nectar perhaps? Plump aphids?
The cosmos sway their blowsy purple heads
under the heft of these hollow birds.
There are more this year than last
going about their various errands, returning always
in dipping swoops to the big mulberry
across the way
where I suspect they are nesting.
A hive of activity that place is
with birds and squirrels and bugs, a rising tide
of ivy lapping at the lower branches, fomenting
all that chittering.
The goldfinches show up
when the flowers do; not before.
I wonder where they spend the flowerless days--
flowerless for me, at least.
It is the sort of thing
I am apt to look up, and then
I will know, but I have not as yet
investigated the goldfinches’ winter habits
and maybe never will.
They know nothing
of my winters, either, and likely do not care
if the lump on the porch glider moves indoors
or cultivates icicles at the end of its nose.
There are flowers and no flowers
but always somewhere
goldfinches.
