That Humming Bird Winks Green

The sky’s blue eye blinks awareness: okay.

The heron’s paper legs

cut a fine pencil drawing —

how many wing strokes

to complete the picture?


Who who else? The owl!

Below its questions there’s a crash of deer.

Coiled thimbleberry and wind-shredded groundcover

spring — how else could it be?


How else but in a high meadow

from where the sea is a thumb of silver,

and the grasses bleed sapphire and yellow,

and the pink bees bumble through moss.


Does the songbird believe in its tune?

How can it sing and not know a word?

So beautiful: this singing for someone

it doesn’t yet know.

Published online June 01 2010.

The Early Years cover image

This piece was published in ‘The Early Years,’ the Summer 2010 issue of CV2.
