How do they do it,
the broad-tailed hummingbirds,
arriving at my window
the same day every year,
welcome as spring,
reliable as moon.
And what part of me
thrills in their predictability?
And what part says,
a tad too triumphantly,
See, here’s proof,
things come back.
I hear the small birds
before I see them,
their wingtips trilling,
I’ve read how the feathers
that make the sound wear down
from use. By midwinter,
you can barely hear
their bright hum at all until,
preparing to breed,
they grow new feathers again.
How do they do it,
grow feathers at just the right time?
I want to linger in the small
miracle of it, these ears still learning
how to hear and this heart still
astonished at the timing
of the world, how life just knows
when to return, when to grow.
