Sunrise reddens the western ridge as the flat-tire moon fades, alone in the sky. Jewelweed flowers along the stream nod and sway as the first hummingbird makes her rounds.
ruby-throated hummingbird
August 7, 2025
Neither hot nor cold under a clouded-over sky that’s faintly blue, permitting sunshine but not shadows. The hummingbird circling my hung-out red bandanna appears to have developed a taste for my salt, tapping all over with her lightning-fast tongue.
August 6, 2025
Yesterday’s red bandanna, hung out to dry in the rafters, attracts first one, then two hummingbirds. Inevitably, they fight. The winner settles on the closest tree branch.
July 27, 2025
Fog rising into blue. Everything drips. A hummingbird sits on a small branch in a small walnut tree, head swiveling all about.
July 25, 2025
A warm breeze abuzz with hummingbirds and mosquitoes. A red-eyed vireo sings a few notes and falls silent. Inside a hollow locust tree, something is beating.
July 21, 2025
Cool and clear at sunrise, with a sliver of moon like an open parenthesis for something left unsaid. A hummingbird drawn in by purple bergamot sips from the drab white soapwort instead.
July 20, 2025
A crescent moon above the ridge at dawn is lost in fog by sunrise. A hummingbird bothers the bergamot, and a wood thrush is singing as lustily as if it were still June.
July 19, 2025
Overcast and damp. A hummingbird visits the jewelweed growing in the drip line from the roof, which still drips from a shower at dawn. A wood thrush sings.
July 8, 2025
Cool, cloudy and humid. A paper wasp drinks rainwater from a spicebush leaf. In the front garden, hummingbirds circle the purple, mop-headed bergamot.
July 6, 2025
A cool and humid sunrise, with the silence of a long holiday weekend continuing to linger. The buzz of a hummingbird. A firefly goes past with his unlit lantern.
June 21, 2025
Overcast and cool. Buzzing and squeaking, a ruby-throated hummingbird circles a red bandanna hung out to dry.
May 31, 2025
Sun through thin clouds and a cold breeze. A hummingbird buzzes in and circles the spot where a hummingbird feeder last hung four years ago.
May 9, 2025
Cold rain drumming on the porch roof. A ruby-throated hummingbird buzzes in to study his reflection in my green steel thermos.
September 15, 2024
Quiet and cool. A hummingbird hovers over the bright pink cover of my book: Phantom Pain Wings by Kim Hyesoon.