Tag: pentimento

The goldfinches have left.
They have gathered up the air
                    beneath their black-robed wings
and shaken off the dust of our dusty world.

Abandoned thistle, crown of thorns;
broken bone stalk;
               and morning air, cloak
of our salvation, rent in absence.

What’s left?
Pentimenti of hopes
               in a dissolving frame.
Only, try to remember the endless knot of their song.
~Franchot Ballinger, “Passion Painting with no Goldfinches” from Crossings

Goldfinches, the Washington state bird, visit our feeders regularly until the air starts to chill in another month or so. Before I began offering up thistle seeds for the taking, they were only a golden streak across the barnyard during spring and summer, barely seen but clearly on a mission I could not discern. Now they linger companionably where I can witness their sparkling conversations while they share a meal with one another, as if our feeders were a local cafe.

Soon they will be gone, leaving pentimento shadows of where they once had been, their bright yellow feathers colored over with the dusty brown paint of a dry tired summer.

In over 500 Renaissance masterpieces of Jesus and Mary, the European goldfinch is included, representing the redeeming passion of Christ. In contrast to the plain black baseball cap of our American goldfinch, the legend is that its European cousin’s splash of red on its face represents Christ’s blood from the finch plucking a thorn of thistle from Jesus’ brow as He carried the cross to Calgary.

I always miss their flash of gold once they move to warmer wintering places. Yet like the restoration of Old Masters paintings, I know there will come a discovery of a painted-over portrait or scene that once again shines with renewed brilliance — the goldfinches will return with their riches of feather and song, bringing with them the promise of hope and redemption.