The Highlights of Summer

Who needs another poem about summer birds?
  Each warm day brings us new visitors.

The Highlights of Summer

The 11 to noon to two day sun
  is a mad place for man and dog,
  and the August cricket,
But the humid blaze of ol’ Summer Sol
  is no vexation for the goldfinch,
Whose piped black wings and lemon shine
  of yellow chiffon cream, 
  with highlight tints fluorescent green,
  capped by a jet black diadem
Outshines the source of brilliance itself,
  he begets spots before my eyes

I fought hard to raise this garden,
  nasturtiums, zinnias, beanpoles,
  and tall sunflowers in the years the Woodchucks didn’t eat gnaw sprouts
A neighbor, I concede, could not be blamed
  to mistake what I’d planted for a welfare garden,
  a green free lunch for our suburban pests
Although personally I do believe I’ve spent more time
  at fending off groundhogs, rabbits
  and all other Mother Nature’s beguiling fuzzies
  than actually tending to the flowers
   (welcome friend, to gardening)

Yet behold! These are for The Hummingbird,
  that emerald jewel of our New England summers,
  who poses as a painted angel
  while she sips the ruby blooms
  of their sweet tears of nectar,
  shed from each pistiled saffron eye,
  as she zigs, she zags, a flit flit flit she flies,
  then whoops off in a knowing line
  off to a neighbor’s bed divine

Until in time the season brings that ravager of a Summers end
  (oh yes, he’s been near all year round, but it’s just now that he’s come down)
The August Goldfinch King!

He flies in on a beeline from that place I don’t know where,
  and perches on a zinnia stalk, just below the head
He twitters to his love, unseen in her tree
  as he flexes his mighty neck sinews,
  his muscular bulging shoulders
And with a beak ruthless as any threshers flail,
  and without even a ‘hello’ to me
He sets to tearing at the bloody red petals,
  shucking them rough about my flower patch
  then hulling every black seed in the cone
Even at the shadow of a passing kite
  he takes no rest nor finds there reason
  to pause or break has task;
That of converting the pride of my flower barrel
  to a Valentine’s massacre of zinnia petals

Yes, these I grew for The Hummingbird,
  that blessed emerald jewel of our New England greens,
And from high on God’s view I dream
  I must be seen as comically mean,
  to have fended God’s own hungry ones,
  I’ve shooed His poor, them all away,
  while this rough ravager of a summers end,


Well,
  Yes, I welcome him