As a Hummingbird

Poetry by Emily Persichetti Schuster

I saw you today
With my first breath of canyon air
You were there

Meandering down the wide gravel path
I saw you as ferns
Edging against the trail

Gazing up at the brilliant cloudless sky
I saw you as a row of evergreens
Lining the rim of the canyon

As the river guided our hike
I saw you as the sparkling stream
Skipping over rocks on the valley floor

The softness of water shaping the valley
With years of patient persistence
Forgiving firmness

And I knew then this is where you belong
I wondered if you’d ever had a chance
To visit this heavenly place

Later, as the sun dipped behind the mountains
I saw you as columbines
Growing straight out of the cliff faces

Taking root in rock
Until I realized you were still the river
And those flowers were me

And I knew then I was here because of you
That so much of who I am still holds pieces of you
Guiding a path I can’t always see

You even came home with us that night
And perched in a tree in the backyard
As a hummingbird

Posted in the highest branch
Watching over my little boy
As he played on the slide and the swings

Emily Persichetti Schuster’s poetry and short fiction is published in Beautiful and Terrifying: Tales and Visions from the Edge of the Uncanny (Elderfly Press, 2026) and is forthcoming in Allium, A Journal of Poetry & Prose. She lives in Athens, Georgia with her partner and their two kids. Find her on Instagram: @empschuster_creative.