Wonder of Hummingbirds

Glass cells of red syrup hang
from the eaves, glisten in sunlight,
colored needles trail threads of flight,
spin a web where my eyes struggle
helplessly. I am enthralled by this
moment to share my pulse with wingbeat,
the gray bench teeters under my shifting,
threads of color startle my eyes as if
a cloud of geranium petals drifted down
to excite the air.

I shall sit on a bench outside this morning
and watch the hummingbirds color the air
from feeder to feeder where red syrup glistens,
they weave in their flight an invisible snare
where I fall the victim by my own volition,
amazed to be part of a moment which binds
us together, they spin their threads of flight,
I am bound in such wonder a man seldom finds.

It fascinates me to share
the morning landscape with hummingbirds,
those arrow-gifted flights of color,
to think we spilled from the same pool
where life began in a greenscum
lit by sunlight. I sit in the shade
of an aspen while they thread the
branches and snap their wings at me
(as if this chance meeting did not
meet with their approval). I sit in
wonder how it feels to be shaped so,
while they seek flowers with bells
oozing honey, they stand off each other
in mid-air, fiercely as eagles.
Their rapid wingbeat finds no
comparison to my slow pulse but here
we are together, each a part of the
day’s handful of space and neither of us
matched to the slow breath of the mountain
which grew from the same darkness into light.