The Laburnum Top

                                   -Ted Hughes

 The Laburnum top is silent, quite still

 In the afternoon yellow September sunlight, 

 A few leaves yellowing , all its seeds fallen. 

 

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 Till the goldfinch comes,  with a twitching chirrup

 A suddenness, a starlement, at a branch end.

 Then sleek as a lizard, and alert, and abrupt, 

 She enters the thickness, and a machine starts up

 Of chitterlings, and a tremor of wings, and trillings-

 The whole tree trembles and thrills. 

 It is the engine of her family. 

 She stokes it full, then flirts out to a branch-end

 Showing her barred face identity mask

 Then with eerie delicate whistle-chirrup whisperings

 She launches away, towards the infinite 

 And the laburnum subsides to empty.