Poetry by Jeff Burt
In the shower from a hose
over tomato vines, an Anne’s hummingbird
entered and rinsed and hovered
a foot from my face, then landed
on my chest to catch a breath,
feet gripping my shirt like a newborn.
I thought of the forty beats
per second of its wings
that I could both hear and feel,
wondered if it slowed and felt the torpor
of stasis come over like sleep,
but in the moment my mind wandered
the hummingbird had flown.
To catch a breath, to enter the mist
and rest on the dusty, arid day–
I thought of the taxi driver
from Eritrea who said he drove
each day until he couldn’t stop,
then he’d stop, he laughed,
he had many mouths to feed,
and hustle is all he knew, cabbie, valet.
When I touched his shoulder,
I could feel his heartbeat slowing down,
body harbor below my hand.
So many months have passed
and he stayed in my thoughts
in the mass where I store
random things I cannot place,
but today I knew,
he was a hummingbird,
beating his wings all day
against the dead air
to stay alive for others,
clutching for a foothold
and turning his throat
skyward for a breath.
Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz County, California. He has contributed to Williwaw Journal, Rabid Oak, and Willows Wept Review, and has a chapbook at Red Wolf Editions and a second chapbook available from Red Bird Chapbooks. Read earlier fiction and poetry in The Bluebird Word.
