Humming-Bird
by D.H. Lawrence
I can imagine, in some otherworld
Primeval-dumb, far back
In that most awful stillness, that only gasped and hummed,
Humming-birds raced down the avenues.
Before anything had a soul,
While life was a heave of matter, half inanimate,
This little bit chipped off in brilliance
And went whizzing through the slow, vast, succulent stems.
I believe there were no flowers then,
In the world where the humming-bird flashed ahead of creation.
I believe he pierced the slow vegetable veins with his long beak.
Probably he was big
As mosses, and little lizards, they say, were once big.
Probably he was a jabbing, terrifying monster.
We look at him through the wrong end of the telescope of Time,
Luckily for us.
xoxo,
M
Wow! It has such a long beak :) Very nice bird.
ReplyDeleteVery nice close-up.
ReplyDeleteWe have some nesting in the garden but I cannot figure out where exactly. They are always here so the nest has to be close by.
I wonder why Lawrence imagined it as a terrifying monster? They are always fighting with each other, perhaps that is why.