Hummingbird Rescue
For Andrea Christensen
Patrick Flynn
©
Copyright 2024 by Patrick Flynn
|
Photo by Leslie Cross on Unsplash |
I
touched a hummingbird today, alone, in a room
for
repair; full of nothing doors, missing windows
and
dirty glass; once home to those who knew to fly.
Chirping
in distress, your small green feathers didn’t shine
in
morning evaporating into red down dulled with strain
and
energy lost in moonlight just past a sunrise. You bumped
incessantly
against the uneasy clarity of spotty glass wanting
to
leave. Weak, nervous exhaustion showed as I neared.
There
is no longer a river inside this house or continents of
bright,
coned flowers trailing blushed shadows and yesterday:
I
raised my finger as a perch—resisting, you then jumped to
the
top edge of the white sliding window, empty space now full.
Moving
a finger under green-brown legs I knew then
what
was always hidden in flight.
Outside,
in a sky of clouds, gray with missing days of summer
overcast
with untouched distance, I didn’t hear the wind stir,
cars
rolling loose gravel or thumping wheels on a paved road
where
birds touch every flower.
You
perched on my finger, soft toes curling my lined skin.
The
silence was full of desire to any open door. And four times
I
weighed the emptiness of leaving, and each still moment
with
its wings lighter than air or a soul that carries you here:
I
shook my head and said “no” each time you didn’t
cross
the
austerity of more time with me.
On
the fifth try the space disappeared as I focused:
your
trumpet beak in slender profile as long as my finger.
I
walked the short paces to the door and watched you leave,
wings
brushing speedy heartbeats in the wind.
PM
Flynn is a NC writer. He roasts organic coffee for
roanokeroasting.com and is published in Helen Literary Magazine, the
Fictional Café, Main Street Rag, the Grassroots Women’s
Project, Port Folio Weekly, the Mirror/Slush, Anti-Heroin Chic, 50
Haikus, Fleas on the Dog Online Quarterly, CactiFur,
Agape Review, BlazeVox,
Words &
Whispers, Straylight, Stickman Review, Aromatica Poetica, A New
Ulster, etc. Resource Publications
published his
first book of poetry, Shadows on Moss in January 2024.
(Unless
you
type
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author's name
in
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