I’M IN LOVE

I’m in love with a ruby-throated

hummingbird, emerald, topaz colors

glitter in iridescent plumage.

He flits about my window sipping

breakfast, lunch and dinner at my grenadine

feeder, swooping up and down in aerial

acrobatics gorging on my mellifluous concoction

after he’s drained the hibiscus and sweet alyssum

of all the nectar he can find.

His flapping wings create a thrum, but he can’t hum

and should be called a thrummingbird.

If I could fly backwards as he’s inclined to do

I’d have a chance to undo past regrets

I think of now and then.

He has responsibilities, no time to sing

with one eye out for predators while hunting

for wee critters on the run.

He’ll die if he can’t eat more than

he weighs, hovering like a Sikorsky

when low on fuel or perching on

a branch to rest and watch the world go by.

He’s a fleeting presence in my life,

a reminder life is death defying

like a high wire act of an acrobat.

The courage in his heart pitter-pattering

like a panicky tachycardia

when he flies to winter in Acapulco

keeps me going when I falter

and makes me wonder if my

kind could ever last 30 million years.