On Seducing Hummingbirds in Eden

Philadelphia

In a Garden

When the gardener has gone this garden
Looks wistful and seems waiting an event.
It is so spruce, a metaphor of Eden
And even more so since the gardener went,

Quietly godlike, but of course, he had
Not made me promise anything and I
Had no one tempting me to make the bad
Choice. Yet I still felt lost and wonder why.

Even the beech tree from next door which shares
Its shadow with me, seemed a kind of threat.
Everything was too neat, and someone cares

In the wrong way. I need not have stood long
Mocked by the smell of a mown lawn, and yet
I did. Sickness for Eden was so strong.

Elizabeth Jennings

This summer, I am spending more time in the country for several reasons. 1. There is maintenance, maintenance, maintenance to be done. And summer is the time to do it. 2. There is a recession going on which makes spending time there an appealing option without all of the cost of, say, a month in Nantucket. 3. I love my gardens filled with flower,s vegetables and herbs--and they need care. I have faithful help of the adolescent next door, Shea, who waters and weeds when I go to New York. All that is to say, the grounds look like the Botanical Gardens right now. Everything is mulched, growing like mad thanks to the twenty days of rain recently--thriving.

Earlier this week, I realized that I hadn't seen a hummingbird all summer, and certainly they had made their annual pilgrimage from the south long before now. What is it about hummingbirds? The fragility? Their industriousness? Their beauty? Their nimbleness as they dart from stamen to stamen in search of fuel?

The salvia, that beautiful fire engine red stemmed trumpet flower, had been eaten by the deer all the way down to the soil. And when I got to the nursery, there was no more to be had. So, the nurseryman suggested cuphea, a red trumpet flower with a tiny purple lip. " This will bring you a hummingbird," he promised. I planted both pots on the deck with the flouncy annual. And waited. That was Saturday. I waited and watched on Sunday, anxious to see this enigmatic creature once again in my very own backyard.

I watched from the breezeway, from the lawn chair on the deck. Nothing. Until I was just about to return to New York on Monday afternoon.

Writing in the early morning at the bay window overlooking the backyard, I caught something flickering out of the corner of my eye. And there it was, beak inside the slender flower just like last year. I sat there watching, amazed at how much joy it gave me. It is such a metaphor for the intersection when yearning for something meets wishes fulfilled. A memory, a lost photo, a disconnected friend from time past, a goal sought that had fallen short long ago, then preparing for its return/ another chance, and, then hoping against hope that the work of moving beyond wanting something would reap success.

I watched for the minute or two that the bird fed on my offering and, too quickly, flit away, disappearing into the thicket beyond.

It was that fast. Just a moment.

Sickness for Eden is so strong.

M.C.