“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.
A poem about Darwin's FInches
