On Sticking Out Like a Sore Opposable Thumb

We give hummingbirds sugar water

in defiance of dentists’ recommendations

everywhere, and in return

for our sweetness, have been gifted a nest

of thistle and dandelion down

attached with spider silk

to a plant on the front porch

that holds a peeping chick

I’m afraid to look at

lest my giant face and eyes

scare the tiniest heart for miles.

 

You probably know by now

of the extinction of birds

and the growing similarity

of those that remain, who are becoming

more and more crow-

and sparrow-like, snowy egrets

soon gone, griffon vultures, says thems

that study such things. Forgive me

 

for making the plural pluraler,

I just want more of everything

in this time of lessening

and to keep us from erasing

the world’s green and red plumage,

its blue and wild defiance of gravity.

And forgive us, for we are big-brained

 

and small-wisdomed, mostly inadvertently deadly

and largely incapable

of understanding the complexity of life,

yet we have bulldozers, earth movers,

power plants, car and swizzle stick factories,

can dam or redirect rivers, cut off

the tops of mountains and drill miles

below the sea, can even make matter

explode, smash the stuff of all stuff

to bits, making us gods

in diapers, magicians who have no clue

what we’ve pulled out of the hat,

and we need help. In addition to their zip

 

and chittering, their air wars

at the feeder over the four fake flowers

to sip from, what I love about the hummingbirds

is also what I fear about nature,

the constant demonstration

of human inability

to find a modest niche

and nestle among the other breaths. Are we

 

an amazing blaze, an evolutionary

oops-a-daisy so devoted to the pursuit

of comfort and ease

that for the sake of hummingbirds

and stoats, bats and bears, waterfalls

and evergreens and everglades

we have to go, or can we change,

can we share, I ask you now,

since my Magic 8 Ball shrugged

at the question, and the river

mumbled something about being late,

and I’m lost somewhere between

the reasonableness of indoor plumbing

and air-conditioning and the insanity

of buying toilet paper on-line. Another way

 

to put this: how many lives

and species are single-serving puddings

worth? I know: yum. But is yum

enough?

 

Bob Hicok, rattle.com August 7, 2022

This poem is written in response to an article at newscientist.com/article/2329952