A Route of Evanescence (Emily Dickinson)

I was awake throughout the night, thinking of the visitor, the (I hoped) convalescent in my study. Yesterday, just before dusk, an Anna’s hummingbird hit a window. John rescued it, alive, stunned. In the past when a bird has hit a window (and yes, I know about decals and things hanging down to let birds know they’re not flying into the sky but we have a lot of windows…), I’ve gathered it in a tea-towel and held it upright — I read that this prevents blood from pooling in the brain, though I’m no expert, and honestly I’ve had more successes than failures — walking out to the patio where other hummingbirds were buzzing around for a last feed before dark. Eventually the little bird began to move and John and I shared the job of holding it upright. It drank a little from the feeder. What to do? It didn’t seem to have broken wings, it could grip the little perch to drink. But it wasn’t flying and when John put it on a cloth on a shelf by the barbecue, it fell to the soft duff at the base of the woodshed. I lined the bottom of a wicker laundry basket with a soft towel, put a feeder inside, and we gently placed the bird inside. I covered the basket with a towel and moved it to my study. turning off the light.

I was awake throughout the night, thinking of the visitor, not wanting to discover it was dead. Finally a little after 6, I came downstairs to check. It was bright-eyed on its towel, looking around. What to do? I thought maybe it would fly if I took the basket outside. But no. It did drink from the feeder, pausing to listen (I thought?) as other hummingbirds buzzed around the second feeder I’d filled and hung by the kitchen door. I hoped it would join them. It didn’t.

I put it in a shallow box, no towel this time, in the sunroom, with a feeder it can easily access.There are doors leading to our bedroom and a door opening to the upper deck. A few plants are even flowering — jasmine, a few last blossoms on the lemon tree, on the epipyllums hanging from the ceiling. I keep going upstairs to check on it. It will fly or it won’t.

I want to say that holding a hummingbird in my palm is probably the closest thing to holding air. Air, with an emerald back and the most beautiful magenta hood, glittering in the light. Air that is alive, after a long night among towels.

A Route of Evanescence,
With a revolving Wheel –
A Resonance of Emerald
A Rush of Cochineal –

Note: the lines are Emily Dickinson’s.