“These birds are the most singular of any in the Galapagos.”
                                                     ­              Charles Darwin.

Volcanic up swell,
tick mark,
tiny dot in the middle
of a blue map.

Stationary ship,
belly of the earth
like a backstroke swimmer
in a blue-black sea,

where erratic rains run away
while a Cactus Finch (Scandens) has gone
black to mate, so black that shadows cast

blushes back.  So black,
more silhouette
than a black beaked bird

Daphne,
on your barred black belly,
this fine breath’d bird, this

penumbra of feathers and flight;
demonstrating divergence and drift,
so proud he sings aloud

the song of the Ground Finch (Fortis). 
O befuddled bird
bereft an opera coach,

sans score  of Scandens,  the bird song
bindery gone  bankrupt,  loose leaf
scores littered, learning a  neighbor’s
second hand sheet music.

 Amid the volcanic dreams
of Finches, and bird shaped voids, 
singing atop cacti, amid these small
dark commas  set against  a bluer
than blue sky,  he sings the wrong song

 but it's been a good year  and she comes,
the star crossed lover, Lady Fortis.

And before the rains return, and they will return,
                  a small clutch of stars.

And when the rains return,

             they will return
                                  with long lost letters from London.