August 27: "Goldfinches," Book Club, End of Summer

Mary Oliver loves her some . . . 

Goldfinches

by:  Mary Oliver

In the fields

we let them have--

in the fields

we don't want yet--

where thistles rise

out of the marshlands of spring and spring open--

each bud

a settlement of riches--

a coin of reddish fire--

the finches

wait for midsummer,

for the long days,

for the brass heat,

for the seeds to begin to form in the hardening thistles,

dazzling as the teeth of mice,

but black,

filling the face of every flower.

Then they drop from the sky.

A buttery gold,

they swing on the thistles, they gather

the silvery down, they carry it

in their finchy beaks

to the edges of the fields,

to the trees,

as though their minds were on fire

with the flower of one perfect idea--

and there they build their nests

and lay their pale-blue eggs,

every year,

and every year

the hatchlings wake in the swaying branches

in the silver baskets,

and love the world.

Is it necessary to say any more?

Have you heard them singing in the wind, above the final fields?

Have you ever been so happy in your life?

Spying a goldfinch in a field or at the edge of a field or in a tree is not unusual.  They are pretty ordinary birds, with their buttery gold feathers and po-ta-to-chip flight calls.  Of course, Oliver finds them miraculous, a source of peace and joy.

This evening, I went for a walk with my puppy.  The sun was well on its downward descent, and the air had a chill to it, even though it's still August.  (My furnace kicked in twice this morning.)  On my walk, I saw this tree full of light--green gilded gold.  I took a picture of it, but the picture simply doesn't capture how dazzlingly beautiful it was.  It was a goldfinch of a tree.  Ordinary but extraordinary.

It feels like the end of summer this evening.  Tomorrow, the fall semester kicks off at the university, so I spent most of this afternoon and evening pulling my syllabi together and updating my online course content.  If that sounds exotic or exciting, it isn't.  It's tedious work where I sit with my textbook on one side and calendar on the other, trying to plan out an entire semester for the two classes I'm teaching.  

I'm bushed.  All of last week was exhausting, from start to finish.  I can feel tiredness in my bones.  I did meet with my book club tonight to talk about Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead and eat dinner.  Some of my oldest and closest friends are members, so the discussion usually veers from reminiscence to literary discussion and back.  It was a lovely break from the drudgery of the rest of the day with people I love dearly.

However, I did see a tree on fire with gold tonight.  And it made me happy.  Because the tree seemed just as unwilling as me to let go of summer.

That was Saint Marty's Mary moment today.