May 13, Ruby
Almanac for Post Moderns
You can follow migrating hummingbirds on a map. A wonderful crowdsourcing — and the red dots and tiny dates are appropriate for Ruby Throated hummingbirds.
When they arrive a new seam occurs in nature. Their Vvvvvvvv on our porch causes us to sit stone still — sentience in a blur sips at the feeder. Their minute structure’s enough to emit a loud ‘peep’. Our big, human life produces myriad data, telling of early arrival; climate change, new warmth, or wet, or dry. What impending change does their arrival signify?
Stood today at the sink watching a perched Ruby’s tongue gather ‘nectar’. I’d prepared the suspended trough in late April — a first migrant to a town was
marked ‘April 14th’ on the map. They’ve been back 6 or 7 days now. A week of the almost unnatural seam they bring settles in, a living context needed here — though more mirage than even brilliant Orioles.
Now, as tulips sag and forsythia flowers begin to drop, we’re yet to have a string of warm days to flower most plants. Their sips now are little stitches in time toward those nectar-filled months and provide odd giants with an awed partnership.
