Feeder On Clearance
A golden finch flies from the feeder.
Does it know
something about thistles
that I don’t?
Does it say no to being
itemized in a gnostic parable -- no
because of some petty squabble
with mustard seed -- who’s really the smallest?
*
My dog snaps his jaws at yellow jackets
or maybe they’re ash-
remnants from last night’s fire.
If he caught one he’d actually
need a drink, which is why I fill up stainless
steel with cloudy water. His breath smells
like carp drying in the sun,
but that’s enough about those twitching
nostrils and pink-dripping tongue.
That’s enough. What I’d really like to conjure is
that stealth bird, that prying into
a plastic silo, that fluttering near an abyss of shrubs.
*
Then merchandise would serve a purpose
greater than an economic stimulus, when
one jot and one tittle
might engorge a fluttering thing.
Back on aisle ten, of course, nothing --
nothing but all inventory marked down:
Everything Must Go! Must Go!
to make room.
Scott Kinder-Pyle is an ordained and now disillusioned minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). He has published poems in Sojourners and The Journal For Preachers. You can read his blog at www.9-poeticfingers.org.
