Like a hummingbird’s wings,
that can’t be seen until you
slow them down
with the alchemy
of strobes and shutters,
the days rush by, blur
into months like smears
of reflected light, into weeks
that smudge all the colors of life
together, that shove
the iridescent days
into a mélange of years
that become mere shades of gray.
One cure
is to pin the days down
if you can, like butterflies
in a museum drawer,
preserve
the delicate palette of
sunsets and dawns,
the blinding gold
of high noon on sunflowers,
all the hues of skin and hair,
the green brilliance
of lawns, the living
ochre fields of wheat,
the brown eyes and blue,
all the wavelengths of light
that excite the cones
and rods of retinas,
that pattern the world’s
days into meaning.
Another cure is
to dance
in time to the day,
as if you were dancing in time
to the hummingbird’s wing,
lifting your arms
and legs as his feathers
flare and curve, metallic
green and fluorescent,
back and forth,
back and forth,
wings like days,
days like wings.
