A Route of Evanescence,
~Emily dickinson
With a revolving Wheel –
A Resonance of Emerald
A Rush of Cochineal –
And every Blossom on the Bush
Adjusts it’s tumbled Head –
The Mail from Tunis – probably,
An easy Morning’s Ride –
Last weekend, I put up the hummingbird feeder. It seemed a bit optimistic–the nights here can still dip below freezing in spring, and the danger of frost won’t pass until late May.
And then, a couple days later, after a long Monday, I was washing dishes at the kitchen sink when a flitter of movement caught my eye. I looked up to see a hummingbird at the feeder, deep emerald with a white band around its neck, and my heart surged.
I can’t explain what exactly it is about hummingbirds. They’re not particularly nice people–they will death-dive each other with their rapier-keen beaks, and they don’t discriminate by species or even size. There have been times when I thought I was going to end up with a hummingbird beak in my skull as I worked in the yard and a particularly feisty hummer decided I shouldn’t be there. They are fairly hideous to each other, refusing to yield even one spot at a four-spot feeder.
But they are pure magic. So tiny, so fierce, so incredibly alive. They are exactly what Dickinson says they are. And the sight of one can transform a long Monday from a slog into a place where magic lives.
The Emily Project 