The finches ride tall stalks long dead
of sunflowers dried in winter beds.
They bend the stems down to the ground
though snow begins to coat their heads.

It seems they sup without a sound
and glean what falls. They flit around
the pebbled paths and hunker low
where wind might skim above the ground,

the driving gale so like a bow
pulled hard along, and sawed so slow
across the lines of tight strung gut;
no music from such effort flows.

Yet pillowed within a tiny hut
where hollow cinderblocks abut
the sprawl of weeds, I glimpse at what
investment brings: one hoarded nut.