Upon the Appearance of a Hummingbird

Like hummingbird wings, 

This death flits in and out of mind. 

A cosmic distraction 

Causing me to pause and ponder 

The awful weight of this tiny bird. 

If it would slow its flurried hurrying, 

If, like a soft breeze, it would tug gently

At the loose leaves of my mind, 

Then surely it would not shatter this window I look from. 

But with heat and fury 

His memory rushes in and out of view. 

The wind of endless flapping matching 

The flutter of my foolish breath. 

Stillness eludes me,

Whisked away by wretched wings, 

Scattered before I can breathe. 

If I could catch this vibrant form, 

Cup it in my hands 

And command it to stay

Or, failing this,

Hide it away in blissful forget—

If I could kill this constant fight, 

Could I find peace in his death?

But oh my soul, remember He

Who took the silent void and made it breathe,

Who made the waters swarm with living things,

Who made the earth to teem with creeping things, 

With fluttering and beating wings,    

Is He who darkens night and summons sleep, 

Who sends the fox to kill with silent feet, 

Who knows the end of ev’ry plant and tree, 

With crumbling and rotting leaves,

Who made both silence and song,

Beginning and ending, 

The fluttering, the falling, 

The breathing, the dying. 

But oh my soul, 

These things are too lofty for me.

If I can not have his life, 

I long only for stillness–

To end my beating, fluttering, fighting, thinking,

To rest wholly on you

God, my God, 

For you are greater still.