Goldfinches at the Quarry (2007)

The huge cold quarry yawned silently
That Sunday morning when we crossed the fence
By walking a log that someone had dropped
To crush it down with its No Trespassing signs,
And as we crunched along the gravel road
Along the quarry’s edge, where every workday
Rock trucks rumble noisily
Above the booming, clanging quarry,
Twenty or thirty goldfinches dipped and chirped
Away from us above the dusty treetops—

Neither of us had ever seen so many,
And I wonder if this flock of them
Has settled in despite the dust and din,
If they dip off as each truck approaches
And dip back again when it has gone,
If they’re only there on holidays and Sundays
When some walkers and their dogs
Are the only traffic besides the distant cars,
Their tires whispering on the asphalt,
If they come back every spring
And why they’d like it there at all—

Goldfinches living at the quarry,
Peregrine falcons nesting in skyscrapers,
Give me hope that Nature will survive us,
That there’s order and justice in the universe,
The birds above us all,
Even as we blast the Earth’s old limestone bones
To tons of gravel we just have to have
For all the concrete for all the buildings
We just have to build higher and higher
Because there is no room, the buildings closing
In a moment but too late
For anything to grow in the ground again
Until we’re gone and birds shit sunflower seeds
They’ve found in some abandoned building
And sunflowers sprout in the cracked parking lots some day.