miracle making

What difference do it make if the thing you

scared of is real?

Toni Morrison, “Song of Solomon”

I am walking up the hill. The sun is

shining the way it only does here.

And Italy. Tuscany, Castelina in

Chianti to be precise. That particular

glow that promises jasmine and butterflies

and puppies. And yes, cliché, fields

upon fields of sunflowers. That

also know the returning dusk. Just

over the hill. The dark of night. And

endless quiet. Today I feel the

heaviness of night. Even as I stop

to take off my sweatshirt. Even

as I happen to stop alongside a tree.

Spilling over with orange blossoms.

That smell of honey, like the kind

I put in my coffee this morning.

I bend to smell her honeyness and

see a hummingbird. Also kneeling

into a blossom. What a moment!

Never before have I ever been

so close to a hummingbird. Doing

what she does. Flitting from

this blossom to the next. Is it

possible to catch a hummingbird

in the act of her miracle making?

I try to but she eludes, so I blow

her a kiss and bid her goodbye.

Continue my trek up the hill.

That feels like the hill around

the corner. From the house I can

never return to. With the man

I can never again see. And I am

terrified. Fifty years later and I

am terrified. Even after the blossoms.

And butterflies. And hummingbird

and San Diego sun. And I wish I

could find a word or way to flit

and flap my way out. But all I

have are my feet. And this moment.

So I walk. Miles. In the warm

California sun.