An experience in humility, not a lesson.
Patience, too. Tambien, patiencia.
Sometimes the wind, sometime the mist settling on the mistletoe, on our shoulders. Bajareque. In a few minutes, sun, shade, the mottled trail. The nectar in the hibiscus warms, hidden hummingbirds emerge, hungry.
Sometimes, for me, the bird does not appear. The red barbet, the flame-throated warbler — red! flame! – remain astonishingly unseen through the glass.
Even the three-wattled bellbird — could a creature make a noise any more cartoonish? – chooses when to be shy with a mate, when to dance.
As the small-fisted heart perches against the sky, a silhouette, flits amongst the canopy like a euphonia — in search of food, home, family — flies off, returns.
Poem by Suzanne Swanson
Suzanne Swanson is the author of House of Music and the chapbook What Other Worlds: Postpartum Poems. She is a winner of the Loft Mentor Series; she helped to found Laurel Poetry Collective. Recent poems have appeared in Terrain, The Hopper, Salamander, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, Texas Borderlands Poetry Review, Poets Reading the News, SWWIM, and in the Land Stewardship Letter. She rows on the Mississippi River and is happiest near big water.