Waiting For The Hummingbird

by Peggy Sapphire
(Craftsbury,Vermont)

She has carried her miniature self
five hundred non-stop miles
across the Gulf of Mexico
and I have climbed a mountain
with generous time-outs
for water
lunch
pit-stops
naps

She the one with innate powers of speed
and me the one committed to gravity
she the one with genetic wide-angle
me the one with mere peripheral
she the one whose brain
is the largest in her kingdom
and me whose brain
may not rank at all

I can claim to have
superior weight-bearing feet
while hers are trumped
by wing-beats second
to none

She will speed-feed on a thousand flowers
a day while I manage
to punctuate mine with three meals
seated
aided by utensils
a napkin
perhaps a flowered pattern
upon my plate

Every morning she trolls
my garden hovering
in perfect winged suspension
at the mouths of lilies
and the trumpets of blooming hostas
scanning the globes of heliotropes
and phlox not yet showing their colors

She descends
the heights once more
in winged figure eights
to dine on daisies
the honey within the lupine

She has already scoured
three hundred flowers
to my one breakfast this morning

And this morning in haste
I've come to await her
but unprepared

She's the one on auto-focus.

(from IN END A CIRCLE, ANTRIM HOUSE,'09)