Bears All Her Sons Away

I stepped outside with the dogs into a morning blanket of warm mist and fog, a sultry Woden’s Day in the mountains, and I breathed deep. The fog muffled the cow-calls and the birdsong, and the dogs disappeared into the gray air as they went to do their business. One of the female hummingbirds zoomed out of the gloom, right up to my face, cocking her head with a curious gesture that drew a laugh from me. She retreated to the feeder and breakfasted while I stood and absorbed the last quiet I would probably know on this particular day.

I felt a tinge of sadness, and wondered why. And then I remembered. The almanac told me yesterday that the hummingbirds will begin their annual southward migration in just over two weeks. Can it be so soon? They just got here, it seems. And this explains the frenzy of feeding and activity they’ve displayed in recent days. Eternal preparations, and I do not believe this is what people call “blind instinct.” No, nothing blind about it. It’s deliberate and knowing. It is life, life for a hummingbird, and it is anything but automatic.

The sadness was also fed by the knowledge that cooler weather will be here before I am prepared for it. All the chores, all the plans, all the foresight required to meet a new season properly…I am forever inadequate, flat-footed, rusty of heart, creaking joints within and without. While I do love the crispy mornings that bring relief from the muggy flatiron of an August afternoon, I also remember too well  how it felt last winter, my feet cold all the time, my hands and knees and hips aching constantly. My, how I’ve changed, and here I am on an Earth where change is swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and I grumble and frown too often at its clacking passage.

My feet were bare on the porch boards, and that will change soon, as well. Soon to be constantly shod and wrapped and capped, and my beloved little buzzing teaspoons of bright feathers will be gone from these acres and will be far away in a warm, pulsing place of strange trees and swift, muddy rivers. Rivers like time, no?

I wish they could write to me, send me photographs. I would love to hear their stories.

~ S.K. Orr