Reward for Stillness

A whir and a buzz
A hummingbird hovering
Beside my right ear

~dkm 35/365

 shortly after ear buzz

Apologia

Dear small hummingbird,
Exploring the red balloon.
Sorry to deceive.

~dkm 20/365

Whaaat?

How did THIS happen,
Without human tampering?
No one here but us.

Tube from new feeder,
Found on railing this morning.
Night time prowler?
               
~dkm 18/365

Yesterday. Tube still in globe.

This morning. Tube on banister.

Mystery!

Could an animal have put it here?

Ruby Throated Hummingbird

New red syrup globe. 

Found within sixty seconds.

Female, not red throat. 

                                    

~dkm 13/365

                            

Friend or Foe?

If it hadn't happened twice before, I'd think of it as simple coincidence, and that I just happened to be sitting in a momentary hovering place of a hummingbird when it flew near to me. But after yesterday's third encounter with a tiny glistening thing zooming in close enough to look me in the eye, I've come to believe our ruby-throated hummers are a delightfully curious species—and that it might have been the exact opposite of coincidence. Is it possible they zoom in intentionally to wherever I'm long-sitting for the purpose of checking me out?

Yesterday morning I was enjoying a second cup of coffee on the deck, having just seen Sarah and the children off to school, when a ruby throated fellow caught my eye zooming from the feeder to the cherry tree. Next thing I knew he zoomed to a hovering place about ten feet in front of me, then closer, to about two feet away, where he hovered sideways, the better to get a good look at my face. I could hear the hum of his wings. He is aptly named. We looked directly into each other's eyes for a long and breathtaking moment. I don't know what he was thinking, but I was fully entranced.

I like to imagine he carried a message from the universe that it was time to get writing, but he was more likely on a mission to discover what kind of creature would sit so still for so long, and if I posed a threat to his kind. He must have determined me safe because he went directly to the feeder from my sphere of energy.

It's not unusual to see hummingbirds at the sipper now, nearing, as we are, the southward migration season.  But to stare one in the eye was a magical experience that transported this writer straight into her story. Thank you for that, Mr. Literal Redneck. dkm

A Graceful Surprise

I call them pearls. I receive six of them every day. Six quiet hours of writing time during which the children are in school.  It's a term borrowed from Virginia Woolf, who named a free day in which to write, a "pure and rounded pearl."  I rarely have a fully free day, and when I do, I waste much of it, so I've chosen to attach the designation to a free hour. It has made all the difference.

To receive six pure and rounded pearls of grace in a day is a gift unimagined, brought to me by daughter Sarah and her children. It makes for more productive and focused writing. At long last I can see the end of the little work of fiction I've been playing with for the past SEVEN years (!!!!), have even gone so far as to claim a goal to finish it off before my next birthday, two months from now, thanks to having grandchildren move into my house.

The astonishing thing about all this is that I didn't realize it was happening until a hummingbird pointed it out during my long sit on the deck this morning.  More about that surprising encounter next post.  dkm