July 2016
David Huddle
dhuddle@uvm.edu
dhuddle@uvm.edu
“Finch Dream” came out of a time when I taught at Hollins University, lived on that lovely campus, and took at least a couple of long walks every day. As I remember it, when the warm weather came, so many goldfinches came with it that for a couple of weeks I became giddy from the sight of them every time I stepped outside. The loose version of a villanelle I was lucky enough to find in making the poem seemed exactly right for my experience of living in the company of many gorgeous little birds.
Finch Dream
Baby-fist-sized darts of gold streak the air
around feeder and bath, they weave in low
around porch posts, swerve past house, tree, and car.
Local angels, these spring-crazed finches are
hot for each other, sun-drops of yellow
we miss if we blink, gold looping the air.
Rocketing our planet toward hell, we’re
disconsolate, staring out our windows
at blurred birds zipping past house, tree, and car--
their flighty exuberance stops us where
we stand. Small brains, tiny hearts, do they know
how we oafs feel when their gold fires the air?
Once I walked through high grass where hundreds were
feeding and they flew up before me, they rose
like a dream--no houses or cars, just birds
rising in swooping arcs, splotches of fire
invented by the sky and the spring meadow.
I walked among gold flashes streaking the air.
Houses and cars all gone. Finches everywhere.
Baby-fist-sized darts of gold streak the air
around feeder and bath, they weave in low
around porch posts, swerve past house, tree, and car.
Local angels, these spring-crazed finches are
hot for each other, sun-drops of yellow
we miss if we blink, gold looping the air.
Rocketing our planet toward hell, we’re
disconsolate, staring out our windows
at blurred birds zipping past house, tree, and car--
their flighty exuberance stops us where
we stand. Small brains, tiny hearts, do they know
how we oafs feel when their gold fires the air?
Once I walked through high grass where hundreds were
feeding and they flew up before me, they rose
like a dream--no houses or cars, just birds
rising in swooping arcs, splotches of fire
invented by the sky and the spring meadow.
I walked among gold flashes streaking the air.
Houses and cars all gone. Finches everywhere.
©2016 David Huddle