Hummingbird Sayings Quotes

And then we're kissing. His lips are soft and leave mine tingling. I close my eyes, and in the darkness behind them I see beautiful blooming things, flowers spinning like snowflakes, and hummingbirds beating the same rhythm as my heart. I'm gone, lost, floating away into nothingness like I am in my dream, but this time it's a good feeling - like soaring, like being totally free. His other hand pushes my hair from my face, and I can feel the impression of his fingers everywhere that they touch, and I think of stars streaking through the sky and leaving burning trails behind them, and in that moment - however long it lasts, seconds, minutes, days - while he's saying my name into my mouth and I"m breathing into him, I realize this, right here, is the first and only time I've ever been kissed.

Suppose I say summer, write the word "hummingbird", put it in an envelope, take it down the hill to the box. When you open my letter you will recall those days and how much, just how much, I love you.

Tea reminds us to slow down and escape the pressures of modern life,” he says

Rice is to nourish,” A-ma says. “Tea is to heal. Always remember that food is medicine, and medicine is food. If you take care of the trees, the trees will take care of you.

They say nothing to me in a very loud way.

Question four: What book would you give to every child? Answer: I wouldn't give them a book. Books are part of the problem: this strange belief that a tree has nothing to say until it is murdered, its flesh pulped, and then (human) people stain this flesh with words. I would take children outside and put them face to face with chipmunks, dragonflies, tadpoles, hummingbirds, stones, rivers, trees, crawdads. That said, if you're going to force me to give them a book, it would be The Wind In The Willows, which I hope would remind them to go outside.

As for life, I'm humbled, I'm without words sufficient to say how it has been hard as flint, and soft as a spring pond, both of these and over and over, and long pale afternoons besides, and so many mysteries beautiful as eggs in a nest, still unhatched though warm and watched over by something I have never seen – a tree angel, perhaps, or a ghost of holiness. Every day I walk out into the world to be dazzled, then to be reflective. It suffices, it is all comfort – along with human love, dog love, water love, little-serpent love, sunburst love, or love for that smallest of birds flying among the scarlet flowers. There is hardly time to think about stopping, and lying down at last to the long afterlife, to the tenderness yet to come, when time will brim over the singular pond, and become forever, and we will pretend to melt away into the leaves. As for death, I can't wait to be the hummingbird, can you?

Suppose I say summer, write the word “hummingbird,” put it in an envelope, take it down the hill to the box. When you open my letter you will recall those days and how much, just how much, I love you.

Someday you'll be as old as I. People will say the same. 'Oh, no,' they'll say, 'those vultures were never hummingbirds, those owls were never orioles, those parrots were never bluebirds!" One day you'll be like me!

Don't you get it yet,Harriet?" Nick says in total exasperation. "i like that you know about the stars in the rain and the shapes of the clouds and the heartbeat rate of the hummingbird. I like that you know that giraffes don't have vocal cords and the sharks can't stop moving. I like the way you stick your little nose in the air.....

Who was to say that God did not use the coyote’s teeth to eat His gifts?

Who was she to say that God did not use the coyote’s teeth to chew His gifts?

Hummingbird Suppose I say summer, write the word “hummingbird,” put it in an envelope, take it down the hill to the box. When you open my letter you will recall those days and how much, just how much, I love you. —RAYMOND CARVER

To this day, I will swear that the hardest poems to write are love poems. Especially when the world feels brutal and desperate and hope is hard to find. If I try to write a love poem, my brain says: How can you write about love when what we need is health care and racial equality and a way to heal the whole goddamn earth? And still my pen goes to the page, and wants to shout about love. I suppose there is always some part of me that cannot resist writing about the hummingbird that survives the hurricane.

All I could think of was the phrase my dad’s father used to say to him when I was a kid, “Don't let your alligator mouth overload your hummingbird ass,” and I think I’d done just that.

Cedar The cedar tree smells like the first crisp bite of spearmint chewing gum, refreshing, yet almost like medicine in its bitter. This tree is surely as ancient as Ecclesiastes-- that's a book in the Old Testament that I haven't read much of, but it sounds like cedar smells. The scent of cedar holds a perpetual hush, whispering, "Hush-hush-still-stay." And then the cedar says, "Rush-rush-be-on-your-way, for I have seen children of earth come and go and soldiers live and die, and I hold them softly in my green-black shade." And so I will leave the cedar to return to its refrain and to remain the green a-men of the forest.

Hummingbird FOR TESS Suppose I say summer, write the word “hummingbird,” put it in an envelope, take it down the hill to the box. When you open my letter you will recall those days and how much, just how much, I love you.

I have now traveled so far south that I find myself come to a place where our common expression “white as snow” has no useful meaning. Here, one who wishes his words to make plain sense had better say “white as cotton.” I will not say that I find the landscape lovely. We go on through Nature to God, and my Northern eye misses the grandeur that eases that ascent. I yearn for mountains, or at least for the gentle ridges of Massachusetts; the sweet folds and furrows that offer the refreshment of a new vista as each gap or summit is obtained. Here all is obvious, a song upon a single note. One wakes and falls asleep to a green sameness, the sun like a pale egg yolk, peering down from a white sky. And the river! Water as unlike our clear fast-flowing freshets as a fat broody hen to a hummingbird. Brown as treacle, wider than a harbor, this is water sans sparkle or shimmer. In places, it roils as if heated below by a hidden furnace. In others, it sucks the light down and gives back naught but an inscrutable sheen that conceals both depth and shallows. It is a mountebank, this river. It feigns a gentle lassitude, yet coiled beneath are currents that have crushed the trunks of mighty trees, and swept men to swift drownings…

What we don’t want to face, what we don’t want to hear or listen to, whether it be nonsense, treason or sacrilege, are precisely the things we must give heed to. Even the idiot may have a message for us. Maybe I am one of those idiots. But I will have my say.

This time of year, the purple blooms were busy with life- not just the bees, but butterflies and ladybugs, skippers and emerald-toned beetles, flitting hummingbirds and sapphire dragonflies. The sun-warmed sweet haze of the blossoms filled the air. "When I was a kid," said Isabel, "I used to capture butterflies, but I was afraid of the bees. I'm getting over that, though." The bees softly rose and hovered over the flowers, their steady hum oddly soothing. The quiet buzzing was the soundtrack of her girlhood summers. Even now, she could close her eyes and remember her walks with Bubbie, and how they would net a monarch or swallowtail butterfly, studying the creature in a big clear jar before setting it free again. They always set them free. As she watched the activity in the hedge, a memory floated up from the past- Bubbie, gently explaining to Isabel why they needed to open the jar. "No creature should ever be trapped against its will," she used to say. "It will ruin itself, just trying to escape." As a survivor of a concentration camp, Bubbie only ever spoke of the experience in the most oblique of terms.

The emperor Caesar Augustus had a parakeet who greeted him daily, and after his victory over Mark Antony in Egypt in 29 B.C., he purchased a raven whose trainer had taught him to say “Ave, Caesar Victor Imperator.” (The trainer had wisely taught another bird to say “Ave, Victor Imperator Antoni” in case the battle went the other way.)

This book is my hate letter to standardized testing. It’s also my love letter to neuroscience, Star Wars, women in STEM, friendships that hit rough patches but then try their best to bounce back, research assistants, interdisciplinary scientific collaborations, Elle Woods, ShitAcademicsSay, mermaids, hummingbird feeders, people who struggle with working out, and cats.

Dear Miss Hummingbird,
 The leaves are turning green now, but not with envy. But they should be envious, because I, Jarod Ora Kintz, son of a thousand question marks, now have what every unemployed American most covets: a cat. Oh, and I’ve also got a new job. Almost forgot to mention it. “What will you be doing?” you may be wondering, and “Is it legal?” Those answers, as you can imagine, are gray. But so are elephants. Gray, I mean. Elephants are gray, not illegal, even though a certain political party in this country that’s represented by an elephant mascot certainly does things that to the normal citizen would be considered illegal. But I digress.
 Turns out that right under “Mayor of Orafouraville” on my resume, I can now add “Concierge at the Five-Star Hotel.” Concierge is just a fancy term that means something similar in Latin, I’m sure.
 My job will be to arrange activities for hotel guests for everything from opera tickets to dinner reservations to even organizing the burial of a loved one—though not if the disposal of the body is to be kept secret because a murder has occurred. Murder is such a ghastly (and ghostly) way to spoil dinner reservations for two, wouldn’t you agree? Or, rather, wouldn’t you not disagree?
 This job will allow me to meet interesting people from all over the planet, and possibly even other planets (like Pluto, if that’s still even a planet).
 It’s a full-time job, at least part of the time (40 hours per week out of a possible 168 hours). I’ll be expected to wear a shirt and tie. And, of course, pants—but that goes without saying. What also goes without saying are guests, but I hope some at least say goodbye before they go. 


When he touches his father's hands, he finds that they're freezing and can't help but move his away. He doesn't feel anything. What he wants to do is cry and hug his father, but he looks at the body as though it were a stranger's. Now his father is free from the madness, he thinks, from this horrific world, and he feels something like relief, but in fact the stone in his chest is getting bigger. He goes over to the window that opens onto the garden. A hummingbird hovers right at the level of his eyes. For a few seconds, the bird seems to be watching him. He wishes he could touch it, but it moves away quickly and disappears. He thinks there's no way that something so beautiful and small could cause harm. He thinks just maybe the hummingbird is his father's spirit saying goodbye. It's then that he feels the stone shift in his chest and the tears begin to fall

Despite all the talk about freedom of speech, freedom of the press, electoral freedom, and so on, I dare say it would be a shock to know what the common man thinks about the problems which confront the world. The common man is always cleverly set off one against the other, children are always ruled out, young people are ordered to conform and obey, and the views of the wise, the saintly, the true servers of mankind, are forever scorned as impractical.

We had a meeting where we were supposed to learn how to respond to jerks who ask things like "When did you know you were adopted?" Most people picture a scene where the parents sit you down and you "find out who you are." I didn't need that meeting to know how to answer, because all I had to do was look in the mirror. When people ask me that question, I always say, "When did you find out you weren't adopted? How do you know your mother is your birth mother?

You want to leave the moat, to go back to the room; you’re already turning and trying to find the door, covered with fake leather, in the steep wall of the moat, but the master succeeds in grabbing your hand and, looking straight in your eyes, says: Your assignment: describe the jaw of a crocodile, the tongue of a hummingbird, the steeple of the New Maiden Convent, a shoot of bird cherry, the bend of the Lethe, the tail of any village dog, a night of love, mirages over hot asphalt, the bright midday in Berezov, the face of a flibbertigibbet, the garden of hell, compare the termite colony to the forest anthill, the sad fate of leaves to the serenade of a Venetian gondolier, and transform a cicada into a butterfly, turn rain into hail, day into night, give us today our daily bread, make a sibilant out of a vowel, prevent the crash of the train whose engineer is asleep, repeat the thirteenth labor of Hercules, give a smoke to a passerby, explain youth and old age, sing a song about a bluebird bringing water in the morn, turn your face to the north, to the Novgorodian barbicans, and then describe how the doorman knows it is snowing outside, if he sits in the foyer all day, talks to the elevator operator, and does not look out the window because there is no window; yes, tell how exactly, and in addition, plant in your orchard a white rose of the winds, show it to the teacher Pavel and, if he likes it, give the white rose to the teacher Pavel, pin the flower to his cowboy shirt or to his dacha hat, bring joy to the man who departed to nowhere, make your old pedagogue—a joker, a clown, and a wind-chaser—happy.

To Begin With, the Sweet Grass 1. Will the hungry ox stand in the field and not eat of the sweet grass? Will the owl bite off its own wings? Will the lark forget to lift its body in the air or forget to sing? Will the rivers run upstream? Behold, I say—behold the reliability and the finery and the teachings of this gritty earth gift. 2. Eat bread and understand comfort. Drink water, and understand delight. Visit the garden where the scarlet trumpets are opening their bodies for the hummingbirds who are drinking the sweetness, who are thrillingly gluttonous. For one thing leads to another. Soon you will notice how stones shine underfoot. Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in. And someone's face, whom you love, will be as a star both intimate and ultimate, and you will be both heart-shaken and respectful. And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper: oh, let me, for a while longer, enter the two beautiful bodies of your lungs. 3. The witchery of living is my whole conversation with you, my darlings. All I can tell you is what I know. Look, and look again. This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes. It's more than bones. It's more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse. It's more than the beating of the single heart. It's praising. It's giving until the giving feels like receiving. You have a life—just imagine that! You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe still another. 4. Someday I am going to ask my friend Paulus, the dancer, the potter, to make me a begging bowl which I believe my soul needs. And if I come to you, to the door of your comfortable house with unwashed clothes and unclean fingernails, will you put something into it? I would like to take this chance. I would like to give you this chance. 5. We do one thing or another; we stay the same, or we change. Congratulations, if you have changed. 6. Let me ask you this. Do you also think that beauty exists for some fabulous reason? And, if you have not been enchanted by this adventure— your life— what would do for you? 7. What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself. Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to. That was many years ago. Since then I have gone out from my confinements, though with difficulty. I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart. I cast them out, I put them on the mush pile. They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment somehow or another). And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope. I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is. I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned, I have become younger. And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know? Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.

Gacela of Unexpected Love" No one understood the perfume of the shadow magnolia of your belly. No one knew you crushed completely a humming-bird of love between your teeth. There slept a thousand little persian horses in the moonlight plaza of your forehead, while, for four nights, I embraced there your waist, the enemy of snowfall. Between the plaster and the jasmines, your gaze was a pale branch, seeding. I tried to give you, in my breastbone, the ivory letters that say ever. Ever, ever: garden of my torture, your body, flies from me forever, the blood of your veins is in my mouth now, already light-free for my death.

Now his father is free from the madness, he thinks, from this horrific world, and he feels something like relief, but in fact the stone in his chest is getting bigger. He goes over to the window that opens onto the garden. A hummingbird hovers right at the level of his eyes. For a few seconds, the bird seems to be watching him. He wishes he could touch it, but it moves quickly and disappears. He thinks there’s no way that something so beautiful and small could cause harm. He thinks that just maybe the hummingbird is his father’s spirit saying goodbye. It’s then that he feels the stone shift in his chest and the tears begin to fall.

Once upon a time there was a boy who knew what he was going to be from the very moment he was born. As soon as he was able to talk, he told everyone, I am a builder of dreams. No one in his family had any idea what that meant, except maybe his Aunt Dorothy, who knew about dreams & how they form you into the thing you’re going to be, even when you think you have other plans. The rest of his family did things like work with numbers & fix old cars & bake bread in a bakery. When he first told them what he was going to be, they thought it was cute & then, when it didn’t stop, it was something not to be mentioned at family gatherings & finally, it was something that would lead to personal suffering if he didn’t start getting his head on straight, by god. So, he stopped saying it out loud, but he never forgot & when he got older, he moved away & his family told the neighbors he was working as a manager & every one nodded & was pleased that he’d finally come around to viewing life as it was & not how you wish it would be. But he didn’t really care because he was building things of air & sunlight & the laughter of children & the sharp smell of lighter fluid at a summer barbecue & the flash of color on the throat of a hummingbird & all of them were things that had no real name, but people felt them all the same. They felt them all the same...

Elsa and Mum and the letter share the silence for seconds and eternities and hummingbird wingbeats. Then Mum touches Elsa’s hand and tries to make the question sound as if it’s not so terribly important, just something she just thought of spontaneously: “What do you have from me?” Elsa stands in silence. Mum looks despondent. “I was just, well, you know. You said you had inherited certain things from your grandmother and from your father, and I was just thinking, you know . . .” She goes silent. Ashamed of herself as mothers are when they realize they have passed that point in life when they want more from their daughters than their daughters want from them. And Elsa puts her hands over Mum’s cheeks and says mildly: “Just everything else, Mum. I just have everything else from you.

I remember one time, while visiting you all in Hartford— this must be a year or two after you landed from Vietnam—” Paul rests his chin on his palm and stares at the window, where a hummingbird hovers at the plastic feeder. “I walked into the apartment and found you crying under the table. No one was home—or maybe your mom was—but she must have been in the bathroom or something.” He stops, letting the memory fill in. “I bent down and asked you what was wrong, and you know what you said?” He grins. “You said that the other kids lived more than you. What a hoot.” He shakes his head. “What a thing to say! I’ll never forget that.” His gold-capped molar caught the light. “They live more, they live more!’ you shouted. Who the hell gave you that idea? You were only five, for Christ sakes.

The Sailor-boy’s Gossip You say, dear mamma, it is good to be talking With those who will kindly endeavour to teach. And I think I have learnt something while I was walking Along with the sailor-boy down on the beach. He told me of lands where he soon will be going, Where humming-birds scarcely are bigger than bees, Where the mace and the nutmeg together are growing, And cinnamon formeth the bark of some trees. He told me that islands far out in the ocean Are mountains of coral that insects have made, And I freely confess I had hardly a notion That insects could world in the way that he said. He spoke of wide deserts where the sand-clouds are flying. No shade for the brow, and no grass for the feet; Where camels and travelers often lie dying, Gasping for water and scorching with heat. He told me of places away in the East, Where topaz, and ruby, and sapphires are found: Where you never are safe from the snake and the beast, For the serpent and tiger and jackal abound. I thought our own Thames was a very great stream, With its waters so fresh and its currents so strong; But how tiny our largest of rivers must seem To those he had sailed on, three thousand miles long. He speaks, dear mamma, of so many strange places, With people who neither have cities nor kings. Who wear skins on their shoulders, paint on their faces, And live on the spoils which their hunting-field brings. Oh! I long, dear mamma, to learn more of these stories, From books that are written to please and to teach, And I wish I could see half the curious glories The sailor-boy told me of down on the beach. Eliza Cook.

On the second Sabbat of Twelfthmoon, in the city of Weep, a girl fell from the sky. Her skin was blue, her blood was red. She broke over an iron gate, crimping it on impact, and there she hung, impossibly arched, graceful as a temple dancer swooning on a lover’s arm. One slick finial anchored her in place. Its point, protruding from her sternum, glittered like a brooch. She fluttered briefly as her ghost shook loose, and torch ginger buds rained out of her long hair. Later, they would say these had been hummingbird hearts and not blossoms at all. They would say she hadn’t shed blood but wept it. That she was lewd, tonguing her teeth at them, upside down and dying, that she vomited a serpent that turned to smoke when it hit the ground. They would say a flock of moths came, frantic, and tried to lift her away. That was true. Only that. They hadn’t a prayer, though. The moths were no bigger than the startled mouths of children, and even dozens together could only pluck at the strands of her darkening hair until their wings sagged, sodden with her blood. They were purled away with the blossoms as a grit-choked gust came blasting down the street. The earth heaved underfoot. The sky spun on its axis. A queer brilliance lanced through billowing smoke, and the people of Weep had to squint against it. Blowing grit and hot light and the stink of saltpeter. There had been an explosion. They might have died, all and easily, but only this girl had, shaken from some pocket of the sky. Her feet were bare, her mouth stained damson. Her pockets were all full of plums. She was young and lovely and surprised and dead. She was also blue. Blue as opals, pale blue. Blue as cornflowers, or dragonfly wings, or a spring—not summer—sky.

So then…you still like me?” “Yeah,” I whisper. “I mean, sort of.” My heartbeat is going quick-quick-quick. I’m giddy. Is this a dream? If so, let me never wake up. Peter gives me a look like Get real, you know you like me. I do, I do. Then, softly, he says, “Do you believe me that I didn’t tell people we had sex on the ski trip?” “Yes.” “Okay.” He inhales. “Did…did anything happen with you and Sanderson after I left your house that night?” He’s jealous! The very thought of it warms me up like hot soup. I start to tell him no way, but he quickly says, “Wait. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” “No,” I say, firmly so he knows I mean it. He nods but doesn’t say anything. Then he leans in, and I close my eyes, heart thrumming in my chest like hummingbird wings. We’ve technically only kissed four times, and only one of those times was for real. I’d like to just get right to it, so I can stop being nervous. But Peter doesn’t kiss me, not the way I expect. He kisses me on my left cheek, and then my right; his breath is warm. And then nothing. My eyes fly open. Is this a literal kiss-off? Why isn’t he kissing me properly? “What are you doing?” I whisper. “Building the anticipation.” Quickly I say, “Let’s just kiss.” He angles his head, and his cheek brushes against mine, which is when the front door opens, and it’s Peter’s younger brother, Owen, standing there with his arms crossed. I spring away from Peter like I just found out he has some incurable infectious disease. “Mom wants you guys to come in and have some cider,” he says, smirking. “In a minute,” Peter says, pulling me back. “She said right now,” Owen says. Oh my God. I throw a panicky look at Peter. “I should probably get going before my dad starts to worry…” He nudges me toward the door with his chin. “Just come inside for a minute, and then I’ll take you home.” As I step inside, he takes off my coat and says in a low voice, “Were you really going to walk all the way home in that fancy dress? In the cold?” “No, I was going to guilt you into driving me,” I whisper back.

Sorrow walked in my clothes before I did. Flocks of shadows followed me. One night I looked at the stars I thought were gods until they disappeared. Some say I smashed my father’s idols and walked away. Or walked towards a desert of barren promises. Or promises that are hummingbirds hovering for a moment then drifting away. Even now, walking towards that mountain, sometimes I will watch my shadow sitting beneath a plane tree, casting dice, ignoring my steps. Some of you made me a founder but it was only that shadow. Some of you made me your father, but it was yourselves you were describing. You plant a tree, you dig a well, and it brings life, that’s all. Everything else is the heart’s mirage. Except what begins inside you. Except Sarah. When she stepped inside my dream the curtains shivered, whole mountains entered the room. It always seemed a question of which love to honor. The land I loved fills with fire. Who should we listen to? It’s true, He offered the world and I offered only myself. But I thought His words were coffins. I was frantic for any scrap of shade. Now everything is shade. Your old newspapers are taken up by the wind like pairs of broken wings. Each window, each door is a wound. One track erases another track. One bomb. One rock, one rubber bullet. What can I tell you? Where have you left your own morning of promises? You remember Isaac, maybe Ishmael, but not the love that led me there. Not Sarah. Just to hear the sound of her eyelids opening, or her plants pushing the air aside as they reach for the sun, twilight filling her fingers like fruit. This afternoon a flock of doves settled on my porch. Their silence took the shape of all I ever wanted to say. Today, the miracle you want aches inside the trees. Why believe anything except what is unbelievable? I never thought of it as a trial, not any of it. Now the leaves turn into messages that are simply impossible to read. The roots turn into roads as they break through the surface. How can I even know what I mean? Beneath the hem of night the rain falls asleep on the grass. We have to turn into each other. One heart inside the other’s heart. One love. One word. Inside us, our shadows will walk into water, the water will walk into the sky. Blind. Faithful. Inside us the music turns into a flock of birds. Theirs is a song whose promise we must believe the way the moon believes the earth, the fire believes the wood, that is, for no reason, for no reason at all.

On the second Sabbat of Twelfthmoon, in the city of Weep, a girl fell from the sky. Her skin was blue, her blood was red. She broke over an iron gate, crimping it on impact, and there she hung, impossibly arched, graceful as a temple dancer swooning on a lover’s arm. One slick finial anchored her in place. Its point, protruding from her sternum, glittered like a brooch. She fluttered briefly as her ghost shook loose, and torch ginger buds rained out of her long hair. Later, they would say these had been hummingbird hearts and not blossoms at all. They would say she hadn’t shed blood but wept it. That she was lewd, tonguing her teeth at them, upside down and dying, that she vomited a serpent that turned to smoke when it hit the ground. They would say a flock of moths came, frantic, and tried to lift her away. That was true. Only that. They hadn’t a prayer, though. The moths were no bigger than the startled mouths of children, and even dozens together could only pluck at the strands of her darkening hair until their wings sagged, sodden with her blood. They were purled away with the blossoms as a grit-choked gust came blasting down the street. The earth heaved underfoot. The sky spun on its axis. A queer brilliance lanced through billowing smoke, and the people of Weep had to squint against it. Blowing grit and hot light and the stink of saltpeter. There had been an explosion. They might have died, all and easily, but only this girl had, shaken from some pocket of the sky. Her feet were bare, her mouth stained damson. Her pockets were all full of plums. She was young and lovely and surprised and dead. She was also blue. Blue as opals, pale blue. Blue as cornflowers, or dragonfly wings, or a spring—not summer—sky. Someone screamed. The scream drew others. The others screamed, too, not because a girl was dead, but because the girl was blue, and this meant something in the city of Weep. Even after the sky stopped reeling, and the earth settled, and the last fume spluttered from the blast site and dispersed, the screams went on, feeding themselves from voice to voice, a virus of the air. The blue girl’s ghost gathered itself and perched, bereft, upon the spearpoint-tip of the projecting finial, just an inch above her own still chest. Gasping in shock, she tilted back her invisible head and gazed, mournfully, up. The screams went on and on. And across the city, atop a monolithic wedge of seamless, mirror-smooth metal, a statue stirred, as though awakened by the tumult, and slowly lifted its great horned head.

Suppose I say summer, write the word “hummingbird,” put it in an envelope, take it down the hill to the box. When you open my letter you will recall those days and how

What did it say about the movement of time, about what was about to happen, that I could understand the hummingbird spin of human voices?

But I believe the measure of a vow does not lie in saying it, or in upholding it when things are easy. The power of a promise is proven in times of difficulty, when keeping that pledge is hard. My husband was giving me ample opportunity to prove the strength of my vows. The Hummingbird

But I believe the measure of a vow does not lie in saying it, or upholding it when things are easy. The power of a promise is proven in times of difficulty, when keeping that pledge is hard. My husband was giving me ample opportunity to prove the strength of my vows.

Did you know that hummingbirds have been around for forty-two million years? And that a hummingbird’s heart beats more than twelve hundred times per minute? That’s roughly twenty heartbeats a second! A hummingbird’s tiny wings can flap as fast as ninety times per second! All that flapping makes the hummingbird the only bird that can hover in the same spot for a long stretch of time. That’s why, when we do spot a hummingbird, we often get a pretty good look at it—because hummingbirds love to stop and say hello and hang out for a while.

I know of no American who has as vigorously insisted that the enemy is within. If he refuses to play the game it is not because he has been defeated; it is because he has never recognized those phantoms created out of fear and confusion which men call “the enemy.” He knows that the enemy of man is man. He rebels out of love, not out of hate. Given his temperament, his love of honesty, his adherence to truth, is he not justified in saying that “he had no choice” but to rebel? Do we find him aligned with those rebels who wish merely to depose those on top, in order that they may hold the whip hand? No, we find him alone, in a tiny garret, riveted to a sickbed, turning frantically from side to side as if imprisoned in an iron cage. And it is a very real cage indeed. He has only to open his eyes each day to be aware of his helplessness. He could not surrender even if he wished to: there is no one to surrender to except death. He lies on the edge of the precipice with eyes wide open. The world which condemns him to imprisonment is fast asleep. He is furiously aware that his release does not depend on acceptance by the multitude but on the dissolution of the world which is strangling him.

Olive you.” Mama mouthed the words. That’s just a silly thing we say to each other sometimes, like a secret handshake with words.

But I’m never embarrassed by love-you words. Maybe some people think that’s babyish, to tell your parents you love them. But I think love’s the best truth in the world. I’d sing it if I were a bird. I’d throw love in lightning bolts if I were a storm. But all I am is me, so I say it when I mean it. “Olive you right back,” I said out loud with a wink.

Say intimacy is not just sex It is the building of a nest The way a hummingbird may place hers between thorns in a thicket At rest her heart reaches 250 beats per minute Could you imagine a heart like that, how it could love How it could be a place you might call home

But like my mum told me: 'If nothing needs to be said, then don't say anything.' And I didn't. Until I met her, and all of a sudden I couldn't shut up about things. It was like we had both been half-asleep for ages, then woken up by the other and those magical little hummingbirds of love.

She had become Jack’s whore and she didn’t want for it to end. With Jack being in total control she felt something that Selena had never dreamt possible: free. Now that she had no say, no control at all, the last of her inhibitions had been swept away. Her actions were a result of another’s orders and so she couldn’t be held accountable for the things he made her do and she loved that.

Hello,” he said. “…hello,” she replied, perplexed. “I thought I should start off with hello, seeing as I neglected to say it earlier.” Her brow came down in confusion. Where was he going with this? “Not because you took me by surprise,” he continued. “Although you did. But because I didn’t think I needed to have a beginning with you. Since we began so long ago, you see.” One eyebrow rose. “But I was wrong, and for that, I apologize.” His eyes became suddenly sad, and it was all Susannah could do to not reach out and touch his cheek. But she restrained herself. “I was away too long,” he whispered. “Three Christmases, six birthdays. However many weeks…” “One hundred fifty-six.” She found the corner of her mouth ticking up. “You were missed,” she concurred. “At home.” “Did you miss me?” he asked suddenly, and a thrill of heat ran through her. Between them. “Yes.” Her answer was frank. Calm. “Did you miss me?” “I missed far too much of you,” he answered. “I did not even realize how much until I came here and found the little girl that I knew had gone.” “She’s not gone,” Susannah conceded. “Not entirely. I still ride Clarabelle at home.” “Do you now?” The corner of his mouth ticked up. “In breeches,” she whispered. Something lit in his eyes. Some kind of… anticipation. And now she knew why her Aunt Julia had ordered her to not wear breeches while riding with other people. Not because they would offend. But because they could entice. She blushed at the thought, broke his gaze, looked at her shoes, at the little bench, and the candles dripping festive red wax in the wall sconce, looked at the eave they stood under, and the vines of ivy and garland that hung there. “I want the chance to start again with you, Susannah,” Sebastian whispered. “This new Susannah. I am a bit off-kilter here, and if you would simply give me the opportunity to catch up, I think you and I… I think we could…” He let that sentence drift off. Left her breathless at what he might have said. “Oh, I’m making a complete bungle of it, aren’t I?” He dropped her hand – had he been holding it this whole time? Ever since he pulled her in here? – and crossed his arms over his chest. “No, you’re not.” She reached out and put her hand on his arm, unwilling to break the connection. “And yes, I suppose a fresh start is fair.” After all, she reasoned, she’d had years to nurse her feelings. He’d had approximately ten minutes. A grin spread across his face, sending her heart into a hummingbird’s pace. She found herself smiling too. No, it was not him falling to his knees professing his love. But it was a start. “Then perhaps I should ask the beautiful Miss Westforth to dance.” The fast-paced reel was in its final notes now. A new dance would start up in minutes. “I would love to.” After

There is a story of a hummingbird who lives in a beautiful forest. One day that forest goes up in flames. All the animals watch on in dismay as flames destroy their home. Only the tiny hummingbird tries to stop the fire. Backwards and forwards he flies, with drop after drop of precious water. Feeling helpless, the elephant with his big trunk and the giraffe with his long neck watch the flames in dismay. They stand and do nothing. The hummingbird continues in vain and the animals start to laugh. They laugh at how small he is and how hard he is trying to save the forest that he loves. “What are you doing?” they ask him, “You can’t save the forest.” He stops, just for a second, to look at all the hopeless animals. He knows that he cannot save the forest but it doesn’t matter. “I’m doing the best that I can,” he says.

I don’t want to die,” I moan softly. “Then come, little hummingbird, and say my name while you do,” he commands.

Hummingbirds lead from here to there the thoughts of men,” one Aztec saying goes. “If someone intends good to you, the hummingbird takes that desire all the way to you.” In my experience, hummingbirds have played all of those roles—helper, healer, messenger, bringer of love—except with a twist: These special creatures are frequently messengers from the Other Side.

People work all their life to get recognized,” Linda said. “What they don’t realize is that once they get recognized, they’re not themselves anymore. Not in public. Not to anyone else. They’re someone else. And that’s what people recognize. That’s who everyone falls in love with. That’s who they want. People like Ann are constantly changing. But the world wants just that one incarnation of them, over and over again.” We didn’t say anything for a moment. Two hummingbirds fought a few feet from us. I thought about how much I wanted to enjoy the sunshine and the hummingbirds and the flowers. Enjoying life as it unfolded was always hard. Since Constance died it seemed physically impossible. It was all just a long, infinite, blacktop of things you’d regret not enjoying later. CHAPTER 9 THE CASE OF THE INFINITE BLACKTOP Las Vegas, 2011 Las Vegas was eighty-five degrees and as dry as the desert it was but inside Nero’s Inferno the air was cool and dark and almost damp, more like a cave than a royal domain. I

They have been here for two hundred million years,” he says, “and until recently there were ten thousand species. They evolved to go in search of food, traveling farther than any other animal to survive, and thus they colonized the earth. From the oilbird, which lived in pitch-black caves, to the bar-headed goose, which bred only on the desolate Tibetan plateau. From the rufous hummingbird, which survived in the freezing altitude of fourteen thousand feet to the Rüppell’s griffon vulture, which could fly as high as a commercial airplane. These extraordinary creatures were undoubtedly the most successful on earth, because they courageously learned to exist anywhere.

where they say a thousand thousand books are held in the Imperial Library, where they say the emperor’s palace has fabulous automatons of hummingbirds and flowering trees. Merlin dreams of mechanics and artifice.

They say those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, but don’t we all?

I wished I could go back to that last moment. I would say, You were the best mom in the world. I need you. We need you. I loved the way we watched robins and hoped for hummingbirds. I wished we had one more morning. One more hug. One more chance to say I love you.

But the center did not hold. Each room was a composite flower's petal exploded out, propelled by fire ... I was dying. Hummingbirds circled my head, separating oxygen from blood with their beaks. I gulped the rich dessert of air. Sandhill cranes flew through the room, way up near the ceiling, their cries growing fainter. I was going the other way. ... Then I heard a nurse say to me: "Don't worry, we won't let you die.

I often get letters from people who say how they like the programs a lot, but I never give credit to the almighty power that created nature, to which I reply and say, "Well, it's funny that the people, when they say that this is evidence of the almighty, always quote beautiful things, they always quote orchids and hummingbirds and butterflies and roses." But I always have to think, too, of a little boy sitting on the banks of a river in west Africa who has a worm boring through his eyeball, turning him blind before he's five years old, and I reply and say, "Well, presumably the god you speak about created the worm as well," and now, I find that baffling to credit a merciful god with that action.

Gr-EEN! YEL-low! OR-ange!” Griffin cries in quick succession. He’s just naming random colors—all except the right one. Except, of course, his words aren’t really chosen at random. “You notice he always says the name of a color,” Arlene points out. “He understands the category.

Gladys loved Mama's red devil cake with chocolate icing, but what I always begged her to fix for my birthday was her rich hummingbird cake with pineapple and bananas and pecans and a real sweet cream cheese icing. Daddy adored that cake too, and I can still hear him telling me before he'd go to work to be sure and cut him a thick slice and wrap it in plastic and put it in the fridge for him. To this day, I don't know how the cake got its crazy name, and when I finally asked Mama not long ago if she knew, all she did was twist her mouth and frown the way she does when she's exasperated, and tell me not to ask dumb questions, then say, "maybe it's because hummingbirds love red sugar water and the nectar in flowers and anything else sweet. But I can tell you one thing, and that's that I'm not about to put a cake outside to see if hummingbirds'll peck at it.

(Home) ‘This land is beautiful, but the people are horrible.’ The people took this beautiful land and raped it, and put up a bunch of ugly boxes, however, my home is in the Victorian-style and it is old and has a handcrafted personality. There is an ancient oak tree outside my window, sometimes I step out my window then onto the roof of the porch, and sit in the tree branch that hangs over, and watches all the stars as they appear to turn on and off. Yes, I have wished upon a shooting star, that things will change, and that the towers will be no more. Looking straight ahead, I can see all the lights that go on the horizon, some days the sunsets are blazing before the lights turn on. Then there are some days that the window is shut because it is cold windy while everything is chilled with the color of blue. (Frame of mind) My mood can change just like this and that it seems. Yes, just like all the summer turns into winter, and the winters turn into spring, and all of these thoughts running in my mind fall like the leaves through my brain, and they most likely do not mean a thing. I guess you could blame it on my ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, bipolar disorder, or OCD. I do not have any of these… I do not have anything wrong with me. But, if you are like one of the sisters or someone from my school, you would say my mood changes are because of my- STD’s, HIV, or being as they say GAY or BI, and LEZ-BO. They have also said, I am a pedophile and a child stocker, and I get moody if I do not get some from them. That is why I am so sober at times, or so they say. Whatever…! They also have said that I am a schizophrenic- psycho and that I could not even buy love. I would not try that anyways. I think that having money does not give you happiness; I am okay being a humble farm- girl, the guy that finds me… needs to be happy with that also. I am sure there are more things they say. However, those are just some of them that I can dredge up as of now, off the top of my head. They have murdered me and my life, in so many ways. So now, do you wonder as to why I am afraid of talking to people or even looking at them? You know you and they can try to destroy me, and my life. However, I do not have any of those listed either; none of these random arrangements of letters defines me as the person I truly am. (Sight) Looking out the windows, I can see the golden hayfields of ecstasy, I see the windmills that twist and tumble. I can see the abandoned railroad track that lies not far from my home. I can hear the cries of the swing as the wind gusts in spurts. But yet I am still in my room, but that is just okay with me. Because I know that there will someday soon be someone there for me. (Household) My room is a land of peace and tranquility without all the gloom, with a bed and a canopy overhead but still, I am not truly happy? There is nothing- like the sounds of the crickets speaking up often in the cool August night breeze. It is relaxing to me, however; it is a reminder to me of how the last glimmers of summer are ending. Besides the sounds slowly fade away, yes- I can hear this music from my bedroom window. It is just like in the spring the birds sing in the morning and leave in the cool gusts to come. It is just like the hummingbirds that flutter by, and then before I know it, all has changed; so, it seems by the time I walk out my bedroom door, to start my day. ‘Life goes in cycles of tunes it seems, and nature is its synchronization in its symphony you just have to listen.

I would have lived in peace. But my enemies brought me war. I watch twelve hundred of their strongest sons and daughters. Listening to a pitiless Golden man speak between great marble pillars. Listening to the beast who brought the flame that gnaws at my heart. “All men are not created equal,” he declares. Tall, imperious, an eagle of a man. “The weak have deceived you. They would say the meek should inherit the Earth. That the strong should nurture the gentle. This is the Noble Lie of Demokracy. The cancer that poisoned mankind.” His eyes pierce the gathered students. “You and I are Gold. We are the end of the evolutionary line. We tower above the flesh heap of man, shepherding the lesser Colors. You have inherited this legacy,” he pauses, studying faces in the assembly. “But it is not free. “Power must be claimed. Wealth won. Rule, dominion, empire purchased with blood. You scarless children deserve nothing. You do not know pain. You do not know what your forefathers sacrificed to place you on these heights. But soon, you will. Soon, we will teach you why Gold rules mankind. And I promise, of those among you, only those fit for power will survive.” But I am no Gold. I am a Red. He thinks men like me weak. He thinks me dumb, feeble, subhuman. I was not raised in palaces. I did not ride horses through meadows and eat meals of hummingbird tongues. I was forged in the bowels of this hard world. Sharpened by hate. Strengthened by love. He is wrong.