“An Apple Tree and Two Finches” by Jane Beal

The apple tree is in blossom outside—
petals, pink and white with yellow centers, open like a promise.

Beside them, little green leaves split open the tender branches
in silence, in exquisite pain, to be the new life of spring.

I hear the red-headed finch singing, and I look
through the apple-blossom branches to see him on a telephone wire.

Maybe he is singing to the lady-finch nested under my roof.
She is not singing back.

A black crow flies overhead, cawing.

The red-headed singer vanishes in a split second.
He is gone, wings, song, and all.

There is only blue sky now through the branches
and the memory of his unanswered love-song.

The mother-finch in her nest stays and stays,
waiting for her babies to be born.

Jane Beal
Sunflower Songs (2012)