I claimed before that as a child, I lived in the trees. At least, I tried. In Decatur, Illinois, where I did most of my growing up, there was a mulberry tree in our backyard where I spent many a summer day. Both me and the books I smuggled out of the house and up the tree with me came down at the end of the day, in season of course, stained from head to toe, frontispiece to end papers, with mulberry juice.
I wrote a short story once about sitting in that tree, about the day-dreams I had, sometimes involving the boy next door who, in real life, I can't remember even talking to. These dreams always had romantic settings, with me as some kind of heroine, a cowgirl, for instance. A pirate queen. And the boy next door (who never even noticed me) had an unusual appreciation for strong women. In my dreams.
I don't remember seeing hummingbirds. But Mary Oliver saw them. If she writes from life, as I suspect she does, she also has spent some little time sitting in trees.
The female, and two chicks,
each no bigger than my thumb,
scattered,
shimmering
in their pale-green dresses;
then they rose, tiny fireworks,
into the leaves
and hovered;
then they sat down,
each one with dainty, charcoal feet -
each one on a slender branch -
and looked at me.
I had meant no harm,
I had simply
climbed the tree
for something to do
on a summer day,
not knowing they were there,
ready to burst the ledges
of their mossy nest
and to fly, for the first time,
in their sea-green helmets,
with brisk, metallic tails -
each tulled wing,
with every dollop of flight,
drawing a perfect wheel
across the air.
Then, with a series of jerks,
they paused in front of me
and, dark-eyed, stared -
as though I were a flower -
and then,
like three tosses of silvery water,
they were gone.
Alone,
in the crown of the tree,
I went to China,
I went to Prague;
I died, and was born in the spring;
I found you, and loved you, again.
Later the darkness fell
and the solid moon
like a white pond rose.
But I wasn’t in any hurry.
Likely I visited all
the shimmering, heart-stabbing
questions without answers
before I climbed down.