Poem for Friday and <a href

The Hummingbird: A Seduction
By Pattiann Rogers

If I were a female hummingbird perched still
And quiet on an upper myrtle branch
In the spring afternoon and if you were a male
Alone in the whole heavens before me, having parted
Yourself, for me, from cedar top and honeysuckle stem
And earth down, your body hovering in midair
Far away from jewelweed, thistle, and bee balm;

And if I watched how you fell, plummeting before me,
And how you rose again and fell, with such mastery
That I believed for a moment you were the sky
And the red-marked bird diving inside your circumference
Was just the physical revelation of the light's
Most perfect desire;

And if I saw your sweeping and sucking
Performance of swirling egg and semen in the air,
The weaving, twisting vision of red petal
And nectar and soaring rump, the rush of your wing
In its grand confusion of arcing and splitting
Created completely out of nothing just for me,

Then when you came down to me, I would call you
My own spinning bloom of ruby sage, my funnelling
Storm of sunlit sperm and pollen, my only breathless
Piece of scarlet sky, and I would bless the base
Of each of your feathers and touch the tine
Of string muscles binding your wings and taste
The odor of your glistening oils and hunt
The honey in your crimson flare
And I would take you and take you and take you
Deep into any kind of nest you ever wanted.

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Friday Five:

1. Are you going to school this year?
Only if working in my children's school counts.

2. If yes, where are you going (high school, college, etc.)? If no, when did you graduate?
B.A. 1988, M.A. 1990, dropped out of Ph.D. program in 1993.

3. What are/were your favorite school subjects?
English and history.

4. What are/were your least favorite school subjects?
Anything involving practical math, including chemistry and geology. (Oddly, I loved astronomy.) I liked theoretical math but give me a word problem and I'm lost.

5. Have you ever had a favorite teacher? Why was he/she a favorite?
I have been in love with more teachers than any other class of human being. My very favorite was the single most influential person on my life for a twenty-year period. She taught me how to think critically, how to read multiple layers of allegory at the same time, and how important passion for one's subject matter can be.

has me playing Severus to her Lucius. I am going to go to Hell for extra millennia for this, aren't I.

Am going to go have lunch with so am once again behind on e-mail and feedback, though not, thankfully, on work, as my editors' computers are working once again! For anyone who hasn't checked out the results of TORN's 7-Up LOTR product placement challenge, this is a must-see; make sure to look at the Boromir-Faramir toast at the bottom right!

Oh yeah, and the very pretty Tom Welling. Bring on the Red Kryptonite.