Hummingbird

Yesterday, a hummingbird danced in the spray from my hose. I fell into wonder.

My garden – emphasis on “my” – sits behind the tomatoes and squash because it doesn’t need the full sun that tomatoes crave. My garden is full of herbs and small flowers. I let the forget-me-nots and creeping buttercups and bugleweed find their own snuggle spots between the pavers salvaged from different places. Now and then, however, I do a bit of tending to Jon’s vegetables if only to ensure that I get some. That is why I planted some marigolds around the squash to keep the rabbits from eating the flowers, and that is why when I saw the marigolds’ leaves hanging like deflated balloons around the stalks I pulled up a lawn chair and the hose and relaxed into making rainbows over the garden.

Somewhere we might still have a working sprinkler, but I don’t know where it is. I turned the nozzle between “shower” and “angle” to reach the plants most effectively. I had it on “angle”, which produced a square of heavy mist, when she came. I am sure the hummingbird was female because of her subtle coloring. She could have been a shadow with flecks of gold as she dipped and swerved, entered and retreated on the edge of the mist. She graced the air, drinking and then landing on a tomato cage.

Little sprites, little blessings, little visitors dance in and out of our days. How we wait for these moments wondering when they will come, hoping we will be graced. She flew to the coral bells and sipped from several blossoms before leaving me. Years ago, when I brought the coral bells from my mother’s garden, I had been told that they would attract humming birds. I had smiled politely and said, “How nice,” since I had never, ever seen a hummingbird in my mother’s garden. I had chosen the coral bells because I remembered how they had come. They had ridden around the corner in Mrs. Vance’s little red wagon and were part of the gift of love and beauty that was the garden my mother watched from her window.

As the coral bells bloom through the summer, I remember Mrs. Vance’s visits. In the coy progression of one blessing touching the next, her gift of kindness to lady in a wheelchair is why a hummingbird danced over my garden.