PHYLLIS BECK KATZ, POET
  • HOME
  • About
  • Books
  • Poems
    • She Introduces Herself
    • In Between
    • Burning Bush
    • Ghost of Global Warming
    • Her Tulip Tree
    • Masks
  • News & Events
  • Reviews
  • Contact
  • New Blogs

POEMS/ An Irruption of Pine Siskins

choir boy
An Irruption of Pine Siskins

A trembling of tiny finches
were ravaging a thistle sock last week,
emptying its contents every day.
Arriving as a group
they fed communally,
each striving for a perfect perch,
their rapid back and forth
from branch to feeder
a recapitulation in a fugue of motion,
its theme and counterpoint,
developed in their frantic need
for food, their fear of predators.
Now they have left
as suddenly as they appeared,
their agitated flight
a constant trémulo
that speaks of dangers
coming on the wind.

From Migrations (Antrim House, 2013)

Copyright 2018, Phyllis Beck Katz. All rights reserved.