The Finches

(Zoological Gardens, Dominican Republic)

They lined the long perches like a living color spectrum;

And they were always shifting, bright, light, fantastically

grained marbles,

Bobbing with stout, sharp, conical beaks shaped for

cracking the seeds of weeds,

Preening, smoothing, and dressing their soft, endlessly

shaded, variegated feathers.

There was the greenfinch decked in green and gold,

The goldfinch with his gold and black,

The purplefinch, the chaffinch, and the musical marvel

bullfinch,

The male summer linnet in his crimson breast and crown,

The black-headed, rose-breasted hawfinch and

Even the Indian Amadavat, strawberry finch

Whose plumage is red and black flecked with white,

whose vicious beak is red.

They danced and dazzled before me, rainbow of birds,

And I studied them long in the hot Dominican sun;

Oh I burned my eyes and I filled up my head like a cage.

Pump Murray