hummingbirds where have you gone?

---

ADDENDUM: the hummingbirds did come back, and as of September 8, 2024 10:00 AM EDT, they are still here.

---

mid-late april, optimistic
early may, expectant
mid may, consternation

meticulously,
i sanitize the vessels,
bases and perches
soaking and fastidiously brushing the red and yellow flower parts to clean them of all gunk and lodged debris
i employ two, simple, pinched-waist, glass hummingbird feeders //
there are more beautiful, ornamental, more expensive or cheaper feeders available,
but this design functions best/ i am a seven year veteran of hummingbird joy.

age-old recipe for hummingbird feeder nectar:

1 part pure cane sugar.

PURE. CANE. SUGAR.

to

4 parts water.

the end.

not beet sugar, not organic sugar,
nor turbinado, nor raw, never brown sugar

this so very important – other sugars are too susceptible to mold, to bacteria, or contain too much iron in the form of molasses.

pure, white, refined and granulated cane sugar, chemically and nutritionally, most closely approximates natural flower nectar

never ever, use store-bought nectar mix* or pre-mix*;

*and when in a store that sells that toxic shit, bury the packets or hide the bottles behind other merchandise on the shelf — just as when i spot Clinton, Kissinger, Amy Schumer, Dubya, or Sheryl Sandberg non-fiction fictions on the shelf at bookstores or big box stores — i flip that tripe backwards and upside down

so, again:

age-old recipe for hummingbird feeder nectar:

1 part cane sugar

to

4 parts fresh water,

i use pristine well water, here: i am so very fortunate: no chlorine, no fluoride just elements and minerals, no water treatment except for a sediment filter

these two simple ingredients vigorously shaken together, not stirred/
just like my homemade margarita with ice
in the same one-quart glass mason jar

---

i check the feeders
throughout the day
i obsess, i pray, in my own way

first incantation songs
then lamentation songs

---

a carpenter bee tricks my ear while i am on my knees digging in the garden

was that her? is she back? are they back?

no, that wasn’t;
no, they’re not.

i google:

“do hummingbirds return to the same summer nesting and feeding grounds each year?”
&
“how long do hummingbirds live?

i remember reading

that Frida Kahlo
allegedly
discovered Diego Rivera’s
box of dried hummingbird specimens,
dead colobri!

dead or killed, Diego?

pre-hispanic and Spaniard men both coveting hummingbirds
as aphrodisiacs, for virility, as love charms — an ancient viagra, maybe the original Spanish Fly ///

and also reading, that the capture and trafficking of hummingbirds
is a thing

bounties on hummingbirds
to sell as chuparosas
to dull, gross, duplicitous and charmed-less men
to try to influence or break
the will,
the spirit
of women

i wonder:

does the supermercado
i travel an hour roundtrip to shop for prickly pear cactus fruit and chiltepin peppers
have chuparosas stashed away in the back?
bus loads of male migrant and guest
farm workers shop there too

migrant and guest human beings
who are Indigenous to the North American continent,
geopolitical borders are still a far stranger concept
than curanderismo folk medicine

but i digress, as per.

some reassure and console,

others who know:

they say,
“the “blue snakes” are here for you, though.”

no one being is substitute for another / there is no proxy for an individual hummingbird or human or snake or dog //

“is it possible that maybe the resident snakes are keeping both the mice
and hummingbirds away?” they say,

as in: abate the blue racer and they will come back?

i scowl at that thought.

do you see the orioles and finches feeding; do you remember how fast and furious the hummingbirds were?

ok. that’s settled.

my friend sends me a hummingbird statuette in the mail — as a talisman? amulet? charm?

---

---

along with a keychain: “Why does it feel like Mercury is always in Retrograde?” / why? /

---

---

thank you, love.

i have known these hummingbirds since 2017

i escaped the foul Chicago summer several times for Michigan — in 2017, before i moved permanently in the fall of 2017

and there she was:
my first hummingbird in the Great Lakes.

---

---

tho, i saw my first-ever hummingbird in Montana
in Glacier National Park drinking from a feeder outside of a restaurant window /
the mountains were snowpacked
but the hummingbird was there in the valley joining us for early dinner before the lupine and indian paintbrush and arrow-leaf balsam root fully-bloomed
i recall that exact moment with vivid detail
because we sat there with our delicious diner-fried chicken, meatloaf and mashed potatoes getting cold
while we smiled wide with delight and wonder / i wanted to go back there for dinner the next night just to see the hummingbird again — and we did //

a decade or so later,
we hiked to Observation Point in Zion National Park — arguably the best hike in the park — dueling with Angel’s Landing,
and there were hummingbirds feeding on cactus flowers 6,000 feet up — adding their beauty to the breathtaking canyonscape ///

my life has changed and evolved in so many ways these last seven years;

and these hummingbirds had been here reliably for six summers, til now

i don’t want to accept that they’re gone —
that they died naturally of old age, of climate chaosed weather, of bad nectar, a window strike,
of human poachers for chuparosas

but how have none of the three regulars returned?

i don’t want an existence without hummingbirds, anymore — now that i’ve experienced what it’s like to know them and share land with them

the other night, i dreamt of an oversized ephemeral hummingbird outside my triptych windows; she was gauzey white, wings beating, her eyes meeting mine

what does this dream mean?

i place an order for smalti in colors
of the ruby-throated birds,
which are also the colors of Palestine
in the colors of the “blue snakes” and my own cornflower blue eyes
in the colors of pomegranates
and the onyx of cosmic Void
i am going to re-create the world i see and want
in mortar and stone, because one day, that may be all we have:

pictographs and petroglyphs.

and i’ll keep cleaning and refilling the feeders every third day until my late October scorpio birthday, like always.

---

ADDENDUM: the hummingbirds did come back, and as of September 8, 2024 10:00 AM EDT, they are still here.

---