In that second, the hummingbird
is a green electron in two places simultaneously,
a glass of green liquor brewed millennia ago,
a miniature green time machine,
a fistful of purple-green air before thunder,
a green moon orbiting almost too quickly for us to see,
a light taking the hand of the green
of my grandmother’s irises in a dance as grave as it is joyous;
in that second, it is a single syllable
ushering in all the greenness of the planet,
and is gone, leaving all syllables, all words,
all wanting to be that single syllable again;
in that second, the hummingbird
perches on the twig of a small tree in the rain
and keeps the pathway it travels from here to Chile and back
through forest-fire-scorched California
within its body like folded up space,
and with raindrops arriving in sequence like a string of numbers,
is in mid-air again in its courtship dive,
beating its wings two hundred and sixteen times,
the sum of the numerical values
of the letters in the seventy-two hidden names of God,
the code for the first matter the mist
sweeping around it, in that second.
— from Juniper Volume 6, Issue 3