The Man Who Loved Hummingbirds

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