Hummingbird (in Cuba, Zoom-zoom)

Hummingbirds belong in manicured back yards

hovering near red plastic feeders bought at Walmart

(On Sale, $6.95),

zoom-zooming back and forth for the amusement

of those of us behind plate glass doors

within thermostat-cooled rooms,

our toes nestled in thickly carpeted

representations of the bug-filled grass outside

(just beyond the redwood deck, and Weber gas cooker).

But these hummingbirds-

2 of them, 3, no..4 !

These hummingbirds are watching

for pink lipped blossoms

full of sweet kisses.

These hummingbirds sit in mesquite trees

(for a moment)

planning erotic dances

with the wild sisters

newly arrived from the Yucatan.

These hummingbirds have not been to Walmart;

but they have flown over a thousand miles of

white-capped oceans .

From the jungles of Chiapis

they heard the voices of 10,000 generations

calling them to grass-filled plains

and shale hills to the north

where mockingbirds and vultures,

prairie hens and quail,

crows and robins, cowbirds, sparrows, and cardinals

have gathered since before the moon set or the sun rose

as backdrops against a single, human-lit campfire.

These hummingbirds have never tasted sugar water

tinted with red dye #2 from the local IGA.

But they have tasted the essential and subtle

syrups of primroses

(growing in profusion).

They have licked the sugary insides of

Trumpet creeper stamens and

and honeysuckle pistels,

whose names are without meaning

in the brilliant beckoning

of the flowers’ sun-drenched petals.

Now, they are flying close enough to watch me.

The buzz of their wings is too fast for me to see;

I can only hear their blurry presence,

their so-curious hummed inquiries

and look quickly into their eyes,

as they determine that there is no pink, red, magenta,

or scarlet signs here worth further investigation.

I say “hello,” before they leave, while regretting

(a little, and for several minutes, a lot)

that I will never see the pyramids of Teotihuacan

or bottlenose dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico

with them.

The Earth is on Fire

There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire, out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Exodus 3:2

There are those who relegate such a vision as Moses’ to antiquity, to a time when divine interaction with humans was more common, or, at least, recorded in an authoritative way.

But look! Look at the fiery magentas and yellows of a wildflower field. Look at the heated golden exultation of a hill covered with daffodils. Look at the simmering blue-green glow of lilacs, iris, and lavender. Eight minutes ago, the photons which are being absorbed by the leaves of those flowers, left the surface of the Sun, and are now fueling the photosynthetic furnaces within each cell of each leaf of each plant on Earth. The Earth, and every single bush nurtured by the Earth, is burning! Brightly!

   

And rising from each of those cellular fires is oxygen, the sustaining smoke of our lives! We breathe, and we breathe the Sun. We breathe, and we breathe the Oceans which last week rose to the atmosphere in great gathered collections of evaporated water molecules, to drift and be driven by the wind; to become heavy and fall as rain; to be touched and held and raised again by the roots and phloem of those flowering plants. We breathe, and we breathe the Starstuff of billion year ago asteroids, ground to dust over time and now feeding their mineral nutrients, too, to the floral flames.

It is not that miracles are no longer! It is, rather, that there are too many to see!