Yesterday a friend emailed and told me that hundreds of migrating hummingbirds flew into the plate glass windows of the John Deere World Headquarters Building in Moline, Illinois.
And died.
So, in honor of these wonderful creatures, I splash out the following poem…
Humming-Bird
by D.H. Lawrence
I can imagine, in some otherworld
Primeval-dumb, far back
In that most awful stillness, that only gasped and hummed,
Humming-birds raced down the avenues.
Before anything had a soul,
While life was a heave of matter, half inanimate,
This little bit chipped off in brilliance
And went whizzing through the slow, vast, succulent stems.
I believe there were no flowers then,
In the world where the humming-bird flashed ahead of creation.
I believe he pierced the slow vegetable veins with his long beak.
Probably he was big
As mosses, and little lizards, they say, were once big.
Probably he was a jabbing, terrifying monster.
We look at him through the wrong end of the telescope of Time,
Luckily for us.
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Have a great Friday!
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How sad about the dead hummingbirds! A fittingly beautiful poem in tribute.
ReplyDeleteYes Stefanie, the poor little beasties. Isn't it sad? They are so cute. You know, the average speed of them in flight is 45 m.p.h., [much faster than a John Deere].
ReplyDeleteI thought that this poem was sort of a fitting euology...
That is so horrible! I'm in the middle of moving out to the farm and while taking a break and sitting out on the porch tonight, one came whizzing right by my head! I was so excited, I stopped by the local farm supply store on the way home and picked up a feeder to take out there tomorrow....
ReplyDeleteThat is agreat poem & a sad sad story.
ReplyDeleteIlove hummingbirds and so I wish they did not fly into the window.
Annette