By Coleman Barks
A hummingbird sleeps among the wonders.
Close to dark, he settles on a roosting limb
and lowers his body temperature
to within a few degrees of the air’s own.
As the bird descends into torpor,
he assumes his heroic sleep posture,
head back, tilted beak pointing to the sky,
angling steep, Quixotic, Crimean.
This noctivation, the ornithologist word for it,
is very like what bears do through the winter.
Hummingbirds live the deep drop every night.
You can yell in his face and shake the branch.
Nothing. Gone. Where? What does he dream of?
He dreams he is the great air itself, the substance
he swims in every day, and the rising light
coming back to be his astonishing body.
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I had a successful Wednesday in that one of the many pharmacies I spent this week cajoling, begging, screaming at, etc. texted to tell me that they had my prescription in stock -- and when I called to double check, they actually did! So I went to Bellevue, farther than I prefer to go to pick up meds, but a lot better than not being able to get it at all. It was another gorgeous, sunny day, and I also got to walk to the beach and see one of the eagles, plus we had hummingbirds visiting despite a cold morning.
I chatted with my high school friends in the morning, watched the last two episodes of season two of Our Flag Means Death with Kristen in the afternoon, had leftover Mod Pizza for dinner, and watched this week's The Masked Singer (trolls and boy bands) and Quantum Leap (not at all believable Nazis at Princeton in the '50s). Now we're watching another episode of Lessons in Chemistry, still more depressing than I expected. Some photos of Kelsey Creek Farm Park's wetlands:
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