bleeding-heart

Mingling with bird calls, the distant, excited cries of small children. The woods glow green. A hummingbird buzzes in to the bleeding-heart.

In the woods, soft green clouds of newly opened leaves here and there. In the garden, the first bleeding-hearts—hunched, almost apologetic.

Each glaucous leaf of the bleeding-heart has rolled its rain into one fat bead. I’m wondering: where have all the wood thrushes gone?

Time has slowed again with the return of cold weather. The bleeding-hearts in my garden are huddling on half-grown stems.

The bleeding-heart I bought yesterday, still in its pot, pulls in the first hummingbird of the year: shimmery red gorget, grotesque blooms.