Tuesday, March 12, 2013
"Of Time" and the Hummingbird
Six weeks I let it sit empty, guiltily. But today I finally filled the hummingbird feeder that draws such delight so close to the house.
Then I came upon this poem of Mary Oliver from a book my daughter birthdayed me with a couple years ago:
Of Time
Don't ask how rapidly the hummingbird lives his life.
You can't imagine. A thousand flowers a day, a little sleep, then the
same again, then he vanishes.
I adore him.
Yet I adore also the drowse of mountains.
And in the human world, what is time?
In my mind there is Rumi, dancing.
There is Li Po drinking from the winter stream.
There is Hafiz strolling through Shariz, his feet loving the dust.
from Swan: Poems and Prose Poems
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One of my fondest childhood memories was that of the ritual of the hummingbird feeder. It seemed rather arduous to boil the water, then allow is to cool, while adding sugar and red dye. I pondered, "why red"? With all the colors to be made from a box of 4 primary colors, why red? of course, as i grew older, the tedious routine of creating the elixir for the hummingbirds seemed well worth it-a few seconds here and there to allow the brilliantly hued tiny creatures to feed from the red dyed sugar water.
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