I CAN imagine, in some
otherworld
Primeval-dumb, far back
In that most awful stillness, that only gasped
and hummed,
Humming-birds raced down the avenues.
Before anything had a
soul,
While life was
a heave of Matter, half inanimate,
This little bit chipped off in
brilliance
And went
whizzing through the slow, vast, succulent
stems.
I believe there were no flowers,
then
In the world
where the humming-bird flashed ahead of
creation.
I believe
he pierced the slow vegetable veins with his long
beak.
Probably he was big
As mosses, and little lizards,
they say were once big.
Probably he was a jabbing, terrifying
monster.
We look at him through the wrong end
of the long telescope
of Time,
Luckily for
us.
Española.