Winter Hummingbirds

 

The lantanas are mostly deep green now—

only just a few daring red buds.

My quail chime, in turquoise and copper,

is silent and still.

 

There is solitary dancing, though,

at the hummingbird feeder—

a dark, flittering joy

against pale clouds

and amber glints of sunlight.

 

The patio couch pillows

in desert hues

are beginning to pop bright

in the growing light—

 

a soft place to land

near my potted sun parasol—

blossomless now.  But I

remember them

 

from September

when the boys

brought it home to me

because you were gone.

 

Another hummingbird

pirouettes.

 

Now, in February,

you’re here.

And every day you drink me fully

with your eyes—a summer thirst

in winter, as if to make up

for autumn’s lost, lonely time.

 

And, I like this

all

just fine.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

What's Going On?  Landscapes

Poetic Bloomings: Out My Window

Here

Today, blue is a dusk-purple sunrise

shaken by wind,

cloudy

with a chance of—?

 

Rain.  No, I wouldn’t call it that.

Not from where I come from.

 

But here,

just a spattering of

little holes left in the sand,

a thumbprint’s depth

is all.

 

But here I take your hand,

walk where a coyote

shimmies up under the fence,

trotting off,

eyes darting.

He’s confident he’ll find prey here.

 

I should be so confident

you always provide

what I need.

And if you don’t,

and I die,

I die

provided for.

I am always in your hands.

 

I don’t believe this is all there is

any more

than I am all there is.

 

I didn’t create this breath in my lungs

or the lungs which breathe it,

didn’t create this dust

which matches my skin—

cells blowing away into

the atmosphere.

 

I didn’t create my own life—

that’s your job.

I am to live it—that’s mine.

 

And to you my life will go

when it’s done.

 

This sand, this dust

I am

to I AM.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

 

I AM:  Exodus 3:14, John 8:58

“If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”  Daniel 3:17-18

“For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.”  Hebrews 4:10