A high cloud ceiling full of holes. In the meadow, one snakeroot flower nods: hummingbird.
ruby-throated hummingbird
9/3/2022
As above, so below: white sky, white snakeroot. A hummingbird buzzes in to bother the jewelweed below the porch.
9/1/2022
Sunny and cool. A hummingbird moves slowly along a porch rafter flicking the fast whip of her tongue, testing, tasting.
8/7/2022
Light fog in the treetops. A hummingbird checks the hook where we hung a feeder two years ago, hovers in front of my face, goes back to the hook and looks at me.
8/3/2022
Cool and crystal clear. The buzz of battling hummingbirds below the porch where jewelweed has eluded the deer.
8/2/2022
Cloudy and cool. A male hummingbird pauses over the faded bergamot patch, then buzzes off.
7/24/2022
Hazy but not yet hot. Hummingbirds circle the soapwort patch, as if following the red threads of bindweed.
6/24/2022
Overcast and cool. Two deer run into the woods as another snorts alarm up in the field. Another hummingbird buzzes me, ruby gorget ablaze.
6/22/2022
Warm and humid. A hummingbird interrupts my writing, hovering in front of my face, then zipping up to where a feeder once hung.
5/28/2022
Cool and clearing. A hummingbird pauses on her way past the porch, attracted by the floorboards’ peeling red paint.
5/20/2022
Rain. The hummingbird darts out to drink from her favorite spiderweb. Indigo bunting like the one blue leaf.
5/19/2022
At the top of a dead stalk in the yard, a cup-shaped spiderweb retains drops of fog. A hummingbird circles, taking little sips.
5/14/2022
The rain stops and the thrush singing at the woods’ edge is joined by warblers, flycatchers, pewee, thrasher, a hummingbird’s mad courtship flight…
5/6/2022
White lilac blooming in the rain. A hummingbird buzzes my propped-up boots, his crimson gorget the brightest thing in the hollow.