Choptack

The Man Who Loved Hummingbirds Choptack Once I saw my fattier lift from last Fall's leaves below our wide picture window a hummingbird, victim of reflected surfaces, die one clue a single feather clinging above die sill. He cradled its body in his cupped hands and breatiied across the fine iridescent chest and ruby throat. I remembered all die times his hands became birdcalls, whistles, crow's caw from a blade of grass. Then die bird stirred and rose to perch on his thumb. As he slowly raised his hand die wings began to hum and my father's breadi lifted and flew out across die world. -Jeff Daniel Marion Today you won't find it on any map, but more dian a hundred years ago, a woodsman setüed diere, hewed logs for his cabin, and cleared a patch of ground. He was simply getting by. Settlers in die valley far below heard him at his work and named that mountain ridge. They never saw him, but they knew, listening dirough the cold clarity of a December morning, it was die heart's own music that chop and lonely echo drifting down die mountainside tack Remedy mullein tea seriously and sassafras for fun were old spring rituals for healing winter's long separation from surrounding wild tilings like woods and fields of botii earth and stars. tack. -Jeff Daniel Marion i didn't understand elder wisdoms, being young, but now i allow being cherished, initiated into others' hopes, emotionsby rituals of healing grace. -Charles Rampp 14 ...