Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds


Too small to feel fear,
one arrives faster than sight
and then hangs, more jewel
than bird, at a flower,
wings worshipping speed,
a blur in the air.
Once picking up one stunned
by the glass, I felt that little
motor in my hand, a religion
that I know all the way up my arm;
abrupt as the universe was
when there was nothing
and God said,
"Go."

Sometimes like that you meet
what is real, touched alive,
a visit nobody arranged.
A day comes, tame you thought,
and you dream along just being you
doing a kind act: suddenly
you have a hummingbird in your hand.


William Stafford

Posted over on William Stafford Broadsides