Refilling the Feeder

My hummingbird is happy for the change…in me.
A newly cleaned and freshly filled reservoir hangs, brimming with cool nectar, in what feels like September’s first fall breeze. I’d gotten lazy in my tending of the small, plastic globe suspended from the eave of the upstairs front porch and blamed, instead, the awful August heat for the mildew-blackened holes and clouded liquid of the neglected hummingbird feeder.

The demands of summer ran away with me. Carefree hours spent on the porch watching hummingbirds dart in for long drinks or perch quietly within firing range and zoom back around in defense of the plastic flower soon dwindled to nothing. And as the birds themselves disappeared in my neglect, so did my desire to spend time porch-sitting.
Before long, a faded and revoltingly dirty (and unhealthy) feeder was the only hint that remained to suggest that this had once been a place of great joys.


A couple of weeks ago, I spent a few days with a friend.
The hum and whir of birds outside her doorstep began at dawn and continued through the day until dark. Back and forth they’d travel by the dozens to the sizable reservoir—hers always fresh and full—hanging near a copper bucket tucked and fastened beneath the eave.




Flowers filled her yard.
As you’d expect from one whose life has been largely devoted to caring for and nurturing even these tiniest of winged creatures, many plants had been chosen as natural nectar sources. But the artist’s eye and poet’s soul had gone beyond to create a beauty so lively and rich, that it remained after dark, afloat on the air of a night lit only by full moon and fireflies.

And I drank it in.





And remembered the places and stories that had first registered those feelings of connectedness, the inspiration that flows with her words from the page.



The friendship that I can only describe as a ball of yarn--
cords wrapped this way and that, intertwined one with another,
until I can no longer tell where it began.
I only know that, with time, it has gotten bigger.



Dropped back into my daily routine from this refresher of sorts, I began with an overhaul of the feeders.
After all, I know what it is to be thirsty.

Chet Baker

Nature's Joy

While a spitting rain from heavy clouds taps upon the window, I look out into yet another gray December day. This time though, thinking of times that brought me joy, and answering a call from Wren to share the five greatest of these— I have found in Nature.

Finding Joy in Nature

Harder than it would seem, it is to explain joy.
For in that moment it is experienced, the intensity may be so consuming, words leave me. Once spilled, gathering them again is like trying to recapture a bagful of bouncing balloons—the harder I try, the more they escape me.
But, back through my favorite pictures I traveled—from this cold afternoon in December, to times of sunshine and warmth, color and life.
And found it all there, as I had remembered.
The times that captured my heart and left me …changed.

Day Lily in afternoon sun

Amberwing on Smartweed around pond

The experience of color--
so pure and so rich as that of a Day Lily, set ablaze in the afternoon sun. Bright and bold tones on petals so soft.
Or on wings of glass that cast a warm glow from their tips, through, to flowers below. To be able to say, “I have peeked through an angel’s wing.”

Dunce Caps in lawn each morning

To find perfect, tiny parasols between blades of grass each morning, in a lawn still filled with crystal dewdrops. Their paper-thin heads so tender and fragile, the day’s light soon turns them dark and withered.
From delicacy, they disappeared.

Jumping Spider watching from Milkweed stem

Female Wolf Spider carrying young over driveway

Becoming small, from tall.
And discovering that, in my looking, others are looking back, staring curiously at me. And living lives, just smaller--from under leaves or upon the ground…

Stamens falling from flowering grass

Being witness to a moment that will never happen again.
A leaf’s fall to the earth,
or the melt of a snowflake that lands on warm skin, just once.
For just me.

Hatching Hummingbird in Nest

Newly hatched Wren

Seeing the first breaths of a new life.
So tender, so small, so innocent.
So beautiful.

How could there not, from these, be joy?

All photos enlarge with a click.

Where have you discovered joy?