Goldfinch in the Garden

This entry is part 13 of 93 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Summer 2011

 

All is gold and green in the garden now,
all humid earth beneath a profusion
of honeysuckle. The brass bell in the tree

is quieter than the foragers that come
tracing deliberate arcs through the foliage,
intent on water or sugar or seed. And I,

I want to sort through the inchoate
tumble of words I’ve written and erased,
erased and written again. My mouth

is heavy with salt, numb from wanting even
a drop of honey. And I want so much to tell you
but don’t know how: perhaps this is the only

way to go on: this never-ceasing work
of cobbling from what was given as loss, regret,
or sorrow: pushing it back into the soil, laying it

out in the sun. The coneflower stem breaks under
the goldfinch’s weight, but he moves to another,
probing the darkest center for a hint of seed.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

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4 Replies to “Goldfinch in the Garden”

  1. FINDING THE SEED

    Let this little garden host your cobbling,
    lay them out in the sun. How inchoate
    could words ever get when said? Not even
    in sorrow or regret. Would loss shear them
    of irreversible years of wanting? It is there.
    It is always there. But like the mother
    of pearl, you forgive that hurt to nourish
    what was beautiful then and a stunning
    gem now. Like these saplings pushing out
    of grounds where as seeds they might
    have burrowed into soil absent of tiller,
    let them grow rampant. Wild and free
    as the wind, they will one day grow strong
    branches, refuge of the lost and the winged
    warblers that will sing your hammock
    songs until you drift into a quiet slumber
    from which you will finally wake up to find
    him there, caressing your face. Knowing.
    Finding the seed that has always been there.

    —Albert B. Casuga
    07-04-11

    Happy 4th to all of you on the Porch and the Via!

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