John Muro: “Goldfinch”
GOLDFINCH
But for the downpour of yellow
that suddenly appeared without
sound where scrub pine stumbles
into a field of upturned stone and
high grass, there was little else
to hold me to that place. The bird’s
brilliance resembled a shock of
summer that had somehow been
misplaced or discarded and left
behind upon the lower branch,
brushed by a breeze I could not
feel nor hear, as it remained
motionless while rising and falling
like the light inside some distant
lantern and so, with fewer hours
before me than behind, I paused,
grateful for the bird’s ability to
heal an aging heart on a day that
had been destined to forgetting
while the sky built itself back
into a bountiful nest of blue and
a cold sun glazed the skeletal
limbs of a leafless birch.
John Muro has published two volumes of poems: In the Lilac Hour and Pastoral Suite in 2020 and 2022, respectively. Both books were published by Antrim House. His poems have also appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including Acumen, Barnstorm, Euphony, Grey Sparrow, Moria, River Heron, and Sky Island.