HUMMINGBIRD

On 17th Ave on Capitol Hill a mere two feet above the blissfully unaware passersby there lives a hummingbird complete with nest and baby hummers . . . how many I don't know.

Were it not for David, I never would have seen her. In my whole life, my encounters with hummingbirds have been as fleeting as a flash of lightning -- you see them, and they are gone. Or, there is a blur in your field of vision that only seconds later, after it is gone, you realize it was a hummingbird instead of some gluey thing in your eye.

Her nest is a feat of fiber fabrication and architecture. Watching her navigate through the blossoming cherries along the street, pure physics in motion, she masters a world largely hidden to the eyes of we sluggish, slow, clumsy humans who think we are so brilliant as we walk ignorantly underneath.

5" x 7"

colored pencil, ink

April, 2011