| Hummingbird | |||||
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My fingers have lain in position on the keyboard for almost eleven minutes, still I do not move. The fragrant Carnaval Weigela blossoms stand at different levels of readiness outside my window. Ripe rose colored buds hold fast waiting for its day to unfold with the heat of the morning, but not today. Today it is the tiny pink and white trumpet shaped blossoms facing the sun, filled with anticipation. I examine each one-and-a-half-inch blossom; I know she will look for the freshest, yet unused. Suddenly a movement, frantic, iridescent green, bobbing up and down as if on the surface of the water. She hovers above the long slender branches bent beneath the weight of the blossoms, I hold my breath, fearing to exhale will send her tiny wings into over-drive, fifty three beats a second, two seconds, one hundred and six beats, she will disappear for another day. She spots the lush nectar, a needle nose, arched down nearly the length of her three-inch-long body dips into the sap. I am inches away from the blossom; I do not blink as she moves from one succulent pool to the other. I can hear her wings, intense, humming as she holds her place, dipping in and out. I can hear a car on the road, past the fields, heading toward us. I know it will not last long now. The car windshield glares in the sun as it tops the hill, I am blinded, I blink frantically searching the foliage, she is gone.  |
