Starfish

In the sea rocks,
in the stone pockets
under the tide’s lip,
in water dense as blindness

they slid
like sponges,
like too many thumbs.
I knew this, and what I wanted

was to draw my hands back
from the water – what I wanted
was to be willing
to be afraid.

But I stayed there,
I crouched on the stone wall
while the sea poured its harsh song
through the sluices,

while I waited for the gritty lightning
of their touch, while I stared
down through the tide’s leaving
where sometimes I could see them –

their stubborn flesh
lounging on my knuckles.
What good does it do
to lie all day in the sun

loving what is easy?
It never grew easy,
but at last I grew peaceful:
all summer

my fear diminished
as they bloomed through the water
like flowers, like flecks
of an uncertain dream,

while I lay on the rocks, reaching
into the darkness, learning
little by little to love
our only world.

Goldfinches

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?