Outside My Window Ix Poem by Frank Avon

I sit on our front porch
outside our bay window

perusing books I've purchased
at a rare book store this afternoon

a coffee table book about John Deere
a collection of poems by Garrett Hongo
a mystery story with Charles Dickens as the hero
a softcover of Thomas Puncheon's 'Vineland'
'St. Louis Silhouettes'
with water color paintings
and writings of a daughter
of the Lacledes and Chouteaus

I relish the feel of them,
the pleasures that they promise,

when suddenly
without my realizing it
I see that I have been joined
by the pair of them,
the goldfinch and his mate.

They are feasting on sunflower seeds
I have provided them in a white tin feeder
(the sunflowers themselves are drooping
their blooms having been stripped of fruit):
they are perky but at ease
sure of themselves
though a cardinal cock,
its feathers dulled by late summer,
makes a claim on his territory,
sparrows circle all around them,
a chickadee slips in and out nervously
retreating to the overgrown wisteria.

She hurries through her meal,
then makes her way to her nest;
he lingers for a while,
insouciant,
then mounts the air
to the tip-top of our young maple,
perching high up there,
burnished by the setting sun
and then is gone.

Finally I've learned
what I was taught long ago:
to moments live
who lived but years before.