Burying the Goldfinch: This poem tenderly mourns the fragile weight of a goldfinch whose life was ended by a collision with glass. With precise, sorrowful detail, it captures the immediacy of loss, the feathers left on the window, the still open eyes, the bird's body cooling in the speaker’s palm. The repeated refrain, “My fault," threads through the piece like an unshakable echo, binding grief with guilt. More than an elegy, it is a meditation on responsibility, fragility, and the way even the smallest life can leave an indelible mark on the heart.
The small body weighed
a mere half-ounce.
A goldfinch thumped
into the living room window, left
fine gray feathers on the glass
like frost. His eyes
were still open when I reached him.
He cooled so quickly.
In my palm he gave up, closed
his round black eyes, his open
beak a silent red song. Through tears
I looked at his curled feet,
feathered belly, still wings.
My fault. My window with no screens
reflected the sky to this bird, invited
him to fly into a deadly illusion.
My fault. The bird feeder too close
for his safety.
My fault.
It echoed as I buried him in cold
but still-soft dirt beneath the lilac bush.
It echoed as I covered him before
November snow could freeze him
in that broken moment.
It echoed as I moved the feeder
away from dangerous mirrors, intent
on some sort of penance.
Such a tiny body
whose weight will not leave me.
Kathleen Cassen Mickelson