I hear something chewing in the tall weeds. Behind the lilac, a hummingbird bent on courtship opens the throttle on its small engine.
ruby-throated hummingbird
May 18, 2011
A light drizzle. The one green leaf at the end of a branch on the otherwise dead cherry shakes itself dry and turns back into a hummingbird.
April 28, 2011
Up in the field, a turkey erects his traveling theater and poses for an audience of two. The first hummingbird hovers in front of my face.
August 24, 2010
In the rainy half-dark, a small white oval shifting and wobbling on the end of a branch: the breast of a hummingbird.
August 17, 2010
When I move my head, the hummingbird darts in for a closer look, leveling her long samurai bill at my neck, my ear, my glasses.
July 24, 2010
Three hummingbirds circle the blowsy remains of the bergamot at sunrise. One lands on a bare twig and grooms her breast feathers.
July 12, 2010
Cloudy and cool. Up to its snout in grass, a deer sneezes. The quiet squeaks of a hummingbird circling the beebalm.
May 17, 2010
A blue-gray gnatcatcher hoovering insects from the cherry leaves hovers almost like a hummingbird, I think, until the real thing zooms by.
May 6, 2010
I ponder the walking onion in my herb bed—how did it get here? A hummingbird lands on the tip of a branch and shakes water from its wings.
May 2, 2010
Tiger and spicebush swallowtails circle the white lilac. Leaves blow backwards. A ruby-throated hummingbird hovers a foot from my nose.
September 2, 2009
Ah, the inversion layers of autumn! A hummingbird materializes in front of me, her approach covered by the din, and studies my bright shirt.
August 15, 2009
A hummingbird defending her patch of soapwort buzzes an ovenbird, who walks back and forth on the cherry branches in his big pink feet.
August 12, 2009
A mosquito creeps across my shirt, an inchworm measures my jeans, and a hummingbird circles my head: this morning, I’m doomed to disappoint.