Pine Siskin

                                                                                                           Pine Siskin

A pine siskin flashes
strips of yellow green
as he lifts his small
body around the gray fir tree .. .. ..
a question mark in the 
air, and then he vanishes
into time.. .. ..
and space has a gap
where once he floated
unaware of silver eyes
in the dark green forest wall .. .. ..
nor does he witness the color of the sky
which leaks when ravaged on the edges
with grays.. .. ..
and the midday sun
above the clouds,
touches flesh with amber heat
and warms the flanks of the mountain,
where talus piles reside
and loose gray blocks
escape, sliding away from the heat
and mass of others of their kind,
and create a
clattering roar which mingles
with the smell of granite
and left-over snow,
which crispy and lacy as it glitters in the light,
melts without a whimper
or complaint
but leaving behind the crushed blades
of grass and small plants
slowly rising again, breathing freely
of the mountain airs
and pointing upward toward the heights
of the lonely gray pine
as the siskins flock and chatter.

M^^W


I saw the siskin outside my window in the tall pine tree - and I just wanted to honor him with a poem - the rest is memories of warm summers in the Columbia gorge and mountains which reside in the North West US.