A hummingbird, some wildflowers and the dumpster

There’s a hummingbird outside

the window that faces

an overgrown dumpster

of weeds.

A solitary tree

overlooks the forgotten overgrowth,

most of its branches reaching far beyond the

reaches of this view.

Some look down upon

this weed that’s devouring

a discarded,

hollow

cardboard box.

Who threw it,

and out of which of these windows?

And how,

for their bars are perfectly

constricted parallels,

keeping both worlds

safely at bay.

It sings.

The hummingbird.

Of being far away from a time

it feels

but

can no longer remember.

It could just fly there,

but each time it takes flight only

to return.

Wildflowers,

tiny as it’s beak

grow all around.

Yellow with white tips,

maybe they’re just sunflowers

cast away

to grow where they can remain

forever minuscule.

Stunted.

Grasshoppers hop

where grass once was

and now remain just nameless greens.

But they’re sure this is grass now.

And the barely visible

terrain just beyond,

with a row of grass

seems all but foreign.

It also flies to the windows open

from all three sides,

the hummingbird.

In turns

but no particular order,

it’s flight path a giant hug

to this forlorn building.

Sometimes it brings them bits of

dried leaves

and rather broken twigs.

Maybe it’s just making a nest

maybe it’s returning

all that’s lost

in a form that’s lost life

long ago.

It’s songs drift in on

the sultry summer afternoons

that glisten.

He waits for its song.

It doesn’t sing everyday.

Sometimes it’s gone for days on end,

sometimes it silently works.

He’s learnt to know each day by

renewed song.

And so his days are rather long,

and yet,

sometimes awfully short.

He’s trying to learn her song.

He recognizes the loss.

He’s lost something to the dumpster too

long ago.

Maybe it fell from his window

maybe it’s safer

now

under the wildflowers.

If she comes back

he’ll try to sing to it.

She can fly,

up into bottomless skies

and down into the endless hearse

and with her tiny beak

she’ll find it.

For now,

he gazes out the window

at the tree

hiding the other windows,

in dense, meandering patterns.

And down amid the leaves

there’s a trail of black ants

eating off

the rotting remnants

of the now silent song.

Image Courtesy: National Park Service (CA)

This Sunday, take a journey with me into abstraction. The prose today speaks about everything and nothing at the same time. It has no aim, no goal, no desire, but to reach within your very thoughts and click-connect. It is nothing in and of itself, (as is true of everything around us), but takes on form in shedding some parts and magnifying others into a surprising garden of those unweeded thoughts that we seemingly efficiently bury, only for them to sprout up as wildflowers staking claim to an unlikely spot, forever. This prose is merely about a hummingbird, some wildflowers, and the dumpster.

As always, I'd love to hear about your wildflowers, hummingbirds, and dumpsters and what this prose feels like to you. Who knows what we may together unearth that the hummingbird may be able to carry back to the one who gazes out into their own wilderness.. Happy Sunday!