Hummingbird

Like a clockwork toy
in the slow light of dusk
sipping sugar water
from a slender ruby vial
with tiny pulsing movements
of its sequined throat,
feeble motion of the heart.
The mechanism moves,
hummingbird in the world.
A flash, electric red
as the pines catch fire,
and this god of moths
skeletons upon the air,
half of nothing, microbe
in the valley's stomach,
its bill a scimitar,
wingbeat flowering darkly.

From beneath the trees
a shadow crawls,
last shade of Thoth,
as old as the mountains.
Wingbeats break the clouds.
The ghost of earth
is waking into hummingbird.
There is pollen in the air,
and a sad, sweet song,
dark river.