ELLEN BRYANT VOIGT

The Feeder

For Michael Collier

1.

Bright blossom on the shrub's green lapel—
within hours after we hang the feeder
beside the wild viburnum, a goldfinch lights there.

And then, next day, a rose-breasted grosbeak
posing for us, making us proud as though
we'd painted ourselves, on the puffed white chest,
its bloody bib: our first failing.
                                                Our second:
disappointment with the chickadees—
common and local—despite the sleek black cap,
clean white cheeks, acrobatic body.

But weren't the early gifts a promise?
We've hung fat meat from a nearby branch, wanting
large, crested, rare, rapturous,
redbird fixed on the bush like a ripe fruit.

2.

Whenever the grosbeak comes, he comes
with his harem, lumps plain as sparrows,

and doesn't merely eat but preens,
never to be mistaken for some other.

The goldfinch "likes to travel in flocks"—
several indelible males, jostling,

careening up to the feeder, then away,
each a child on a stick, galloping;

and females, less spectacular,
shades of green and brown mixed into the yellow,

better to subside into the foliage.

3.

It struts on the grass, like a crow but smaller,
or, the grackle, whose green head shines,
or starling, aiming its golden eye,

or Red-Winged with its gaudy flags,
but this bird, this bird crosses the grass
white stripe tucked, the orange locked up.

Blackbird, blackbird, fly away.
Take sorrow with you when you go.
Raven, starling, grackle, crow.

Tricolored Blackbird, my favorite, my signature:
nobody knows for sure what it is
till it flies away.

4.

O poor little bird, little dull peewee
with your condescending name—

is it enough merely to sing
with such a transparent song?

5.

Some: thistle; some: sunflower, cracked, already shelled.
But it's grease that wooed these out of the woods,
a pair, Hairy not Downy, we know this
from their size and not their call.

Why are they squeaking? Bigger
than the rest, not bullied by jays, seizing the stash,
swinging on it, drilling into it, one at a time
as the other clings to the trunk of the nearest pine
and waits its turn,
                              even the one with the red
slash on his head.

6.

Today: one wild turkey, more a meal than a bird,

refusing to stay with the others out in the field
bobbing for apples—
                                 bobbing up , from a crouch
on the crusted snowpack, olympic leaps.
                                                                 They also fly,
improbable and brutally efficient, low to the ground;

and the tree they roost in
trembles.

7.

Late March: glazed over, here,
don't go near Virginia—

that stab of forsythia, cherry weeping,
redbud smeared on the hill,

and perched in my sister's dogwood,
seven elegant cardinals, each

wearing a crown like something
it had earned, and trumpeting.

8.

Suddenly there suddenly gone.
                                                  Do they count
if they come not to the back yard but the front,
not to the feeder but the crabapple tree,
its ornaments dulled
by winter?
                  Multiple, tufted,
pulled forward by the blunt beak
like dancers propelled by the head:
                                                         Cedar Waxwings:
I almost missed them, looking the other way.

9.

Nothing at the feeder. Nothing at the bush.
It takes awhile before I see the shadow.

10.

So: she's found me here:
chief bird of my childhood,
gray, pillow-breasted,
only needed asking—
no, only the crumbs
of others' invitations.
She waddles beneath the feeder,
retrieving what she can
from the hulls, the debris dropped
to the grass by the glamorous birds,
thrusting her undersized head
forward and back, forward
and back again. And her call,
alto, cello, tremolo,
makes the life I've made
melt away.