late afternoon poetry lunes
before dusk
with papery wings
maple seeds
hold afternoon light
ruby-red as a
hummingbird’s
throat, glinting brightly
larger than the ledge
a sun-drunk
ginger cat, yawning
*
About this poem
This week welcomed the first of hummingbirds, returning from Mexico and Central America to their breeding grounds here in western North Carolina.
As in years before, the hummingbirds arrived on the end of a spring storm. The above is a series of lune poems I wrote to mark the first hummingbird sighting of the season, late one afternoon after the sun came out.
For reference, a lune is a short poem with just three lines, similar to the form of Japanese poetry called haiku.
And if I haven’t said so before, thank you for reading a small spectacle.
I saw my first hummingbird for this year on Monday. I was filled with awe at how that tiny creature could persist on such a long journey and then just calmly hover around my red plastic feeder just inches from the glass of my patio door as if there was nothing else in the world to worry about.