Elegy for a Hummingbird

by Jana L. Shirk

When I found it—ruby-throated hanging,

dangling dishcloth limp

that windless day,

beak driven through clothesline,

like hammer pounds nail,

straight,

true—

I wrapped guilt around me, a worn through shawl,

and shivered.

It stings, mea culpa,

This snare I set unwitting,

that casts me headlong,

whips me with its thousand lashes.

My fingers touched iridescence,

soft, glimmered, feather upon feather.

Warmth fell yielding into my hand.

I have held a rainbow,

and I have held a dagger called Curse.

I am weighted by the weightlessness

and all that our sins have undone.

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Jana L. Shirk composes poetry and handwritten letters somewhere between a sink full of dishes and overflowing laundry baskets. She and her husband raise their children, hens, and bees in Southwest Michigan. Fallen creatures fill her with longing for creation to be set free from its bondage to corruption, and she eagerly waits for all things new. In the waiting, she marvels in the flicker of fireflies, the call of the sandhill crane, the jade green chrysalis of a monarch, and the flutter of pigeons as they land on the silo.