Scrap Found Snagged on a Pasture Fence

The hummingbird is back, but now,
A day later, it’s grey. How is that?
Make a story of the much-told story,
Where it came from, what it means.

A dragonfly, black as carbon and long
As an art pencil lead, hovers over road tar.
You want to pick (a) this never happened
Or (b) it happened just exactly as it said.

Clouds gather around the singing meadow
Like elderly professors gathering to confer,
And another pick-up and another rattle up
The ravishing spiritual vision of this canyon.

Do something different, on this occasion.
The audience in your mind is sleeping.
You can afford to visit tradition’s kitchen,
See what’s worth raiding, what guests left.

Where is that hummingbird? Dragonfly?
Yesterday, it was the cow elk in the brush
Until it sniffed you, then the fat beaver, far
From home pond, racing as fast as it could.

I’m telling you. (Another pick-up, another.)
When your fellow humans all bypass you,
And even the odder creatures start leaving,
You know it’s time to move now, don’t you?