My 4 a.m. head was crammed
with a dancing flame and fishes
that swam from cloud to cloud.
and a long ago naked plunge
in the pool of a New Mexico flash flood
fed by a rust-colored cataract.
Our bodies were speckled
and dusted with orange
when it dried on our skin.
And once again, for what
must be the ten-thousandth time,
that warm day one spring
when walking out a ranch road
on the green flank of the mountain
the Spanish named for the devil,
I saw a huge valley oak covered
with fresh sprouting leaves
trembling in the breeze.
Except there was no breeze
and the leaves were singing.
It was all finches, finches,
an orchestra of goldfinches
on their way north to nest and feast
on the seeds of grasses and thistles.
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