The gold finch is dangling from the verdi gris
branch, a pendant on a tarnished chain.
April already has the warm smell of soil.
This is Spring in the vernacular, the mind alighting,
and everything evoking. The ruby tips
of the sumac leaves, mountain tops at sunset.
But the garden falls off from perfection so fast—
spent blooms plop down and stain the walk
greasy brown, the sage has rot from the rain.
Already the mature color of their summer
green pushes through the translucent paths
of river-like veins, resonances and meanings
in the lost leaves below, old feeding new words.
These things make without intention, forgotten
meanings much the same. Strike the word, and it
sings, whether or not you hear, even if you don’t
strike it. Did you see the elm, the one by the park,
taller than last year? And the moon waxing gibbous.
I know; you didn’t see. That is where the Larger Bear
would be if it were dark / That is where it is.
This is my mythology: Ask me, What time is it?
It’s all in the syntax, the arrangement.
The far cry of meaning is what we imagine:
I am—I feel it—it is a gladness—sourceless—
Useless / as if I am a conduit for some desire
Only the gold finches understand, the ruby tips unfurling.
The present meaning eats the past, an infinite
feast; the dead leaves feed the soil, an infinite fast.