My Own Private Assisi

My rescue of critters continues.

Yesterday, I noticed that one of the hummingbird feeders was empty. When I brought it into the house to wash it out and replenish it with nectar, I saw that a honeybee had somehow worked her way down into the feeder. I dumped her into the sink when I emptied the glass feeder. She was saturated with sugar-water and barely moving, but she did not try to fight me, as the Irishman is reputed to have done when he fell into a vat of whiskey and his mates attempted to rescue him. I took her out to the deck and put her on the rail in the sun, and in a few minutes, she was dried off and moving around with brisk little jerks. Finally, she took wing and flew off into the woods. I watched her and wondered again if the little critters I save spend a few minutes in the evening telling their families about the silver-haired giant who pulled them from the jaws of doom.

It’s been raining on and off for two days, a gentle rain, not the destructive kind they’re experiencing down in Arkansas and Oklahoma right now. During a lull this afternoon, I sat outside and watched the activity of the living things. The hummingbirds were in fine form, whirring and buzzing past me, chasing each other, perching, flitting, zipping, sipping, watching, squeaking, hurrying, adorning the air with their charged beauty. The goldfinches ignored the pristine and untouched goldfinch feeder with its expensive thistle seed and opted instead for the sunflower seeds in the songbird feeders. A juvenile red-tailed hawk dropped down and sat on the swing, stern and aloof as he stared at me. Two chipmunks chased each other through the butterfly & hummingbird garden, causing the doves to jump out of the way like plump matrons being harassed by skateboarding teenagers. Barn swallows boomeranged through the gray sky above me, calling to each other, calling to their mindful Maker. One of the books I’m currently reading, a memoir of neurosurgeon Oliver Sacks, sat untouched on my lap.

Books, books. How many adults I encounter in everyday life who tell me — with pride — that they haven’t read a book since they graduated. This is completely foreign to me, though in fairness I must say that many men probably have a similar reaction to me when they ask me if I watched the big game and I tell them that I have zero interest in sports. In this region, such an admission is tantamount to declaring that I enjoy dressing up in my wife’s clothes and that I enjoy flower arranging and poetry readings.

Well…

I actually do arrange flowers. It seems to be something that I am naturally good at. I cut and pick wildflowers and flowers we grow, and I arrange them in my wife’s vases and urns. What I produce gives my wife a degree of happiness, and it provides me with a sense of calm and relaxed purpose.

And poetry. I both read and write poetry (avidly and badly, respectively). I recently finished the collected poems of Elizabeth Jennings, and I am still reeling from the power and precision of her command of verse. I learned that a biography of Miss Jennings was published last year, and it is on my wish list.

Also on my wish list: I wish people (especially people my age) would discontinue the practice of starting their spoken sentences with the word “so.” When did this become a thing?

And I wish I could listen to or read just one item in the media where the word “iconic” is not used.  And the people (over)using this word clearly don’t even know what it really means.

Now that I’ve drawn your attention to these two things, you’ll notice them everywhere. And your jaws will soon grow sore from clenching them if you are a person of noble character, as I am. Just ask the local animals.

Right now, my wife is sitting out front, holding a small hummingbird feeder in her hand. So far, no takers. But in the past, she has fed the little things from her hand and is enchanted by the touch of their teeny feet and their nonexistent weight when they come to her for a drink. Later, she will cook one of her delicious homemade pizzas and we will watch a movie together. Our dogs will drowse beside our chairs, and our elderly cat will yowl when she wants her dish refilled. The soft light in this room will give a mellow glow to the spines of the books on the shelves and on the old table that sits between our chairs. And Saturday night will blend into Sunday morning, and we will sleep beneath the high dome of clouds and their life-giving raindrops. The little creatures will sleep, too, in their burrows or on their branches, and they will dream of things about which I can never know, things about which they will not in this life tell me a single thing.

~ S.K. Orr