Love Song of the Hummingbirds

Impossible, you said. The clock races like a madman
on fire
and death’s like someone you lost a bet to and he wants
his money
now. Even sooner. Music in pistils and reeds? Blossoms?
Not likely.
Busy ones with noses to the flower-stone. Obsession.
Maybe, I said.
But listen: play the flutter of whir, slow it down. Put your ear
to the wings.
What do you hear? Only Kali, the Dark One, goddess of skulls,
her ensemble of affection,
emerald stick pins, batons, keeping quick time to the holy OM,
the endless raga,
the marriage of beauty and death, the love song, over and over
and over.

John Valentine lives in beautiful Savannah, GA. He is a retired philosophy teacher, 74 years young.