Hummingbird, hummingbird,
floating on invisible wings, darting here and there, while the whole garden sings. How do your tiny little eyes find the perfect blossom? You always do and I think you’re awesome! You hover in flight and look me in the eye. Our souls join momentarily and I follow you to the sky. (c) 2020 Larry Kilham Who’s that rider crossing the plain his horse kicking up a cloud of dust? He seeks to knock on fortune’s door - this rider will do what he must. There is a lonely cabin on the plain where he thinks his lady waits She’s called Louisa May and is known to tempt the fates. Knock, knock he goes, “Open up or I’ll shoot out the lock.” The rider breaks in and stomps around but finds only a turquoise rock. What happened to his lady fair? He searches for the slightest trace and listens for her beckoning voice but there’s no sign of her pretty face. The rider looks in the stable and finds a horse munching hay It’s saddled and ready to ride but there is no mistress May. The horse must have bolted to the barn as horses like to do. So the rider mounts the horse and, on a whim, lets the pawing, snorting steed run where it suits him. The horse stops in a rocky gulch where a lady lies shovel in hand. She lays silent and dying waiting for her man. “Oh, my precious Louisa May! Why are you here alone? We should have worked together finding turquoise stone by stone!” He brings her to a cooling stream with barely moments to spare. She struggles and recovers under the rider’s loving care. At last she says: “Turquoise and copper lie together much like you and me. When we mine these riches together we shall be.” “Look for bright green stone in the cliff by the snaggly pine. It will process to the very best copper and there we will build our mine.” From this small beginning they build a regal mansion and furnish it with furniture and art and china of all the latest fashion. One day there’s a knock on the door and they admit an elegant stranger with silk suit and gold watch chain, cane, and ten-gallon hat. “I’m here to save y’all from a real and present danger.” “The railroad’s coming through and they’re fixin’ to take your house. It’s for their ruthless boss known as Big Tony the Louse.” “Let me buy your house and mine right now for gold or cash. I’ll deal with the railroad folks and you’ll be gone in a flash.” This story lives on as legend about this lucky and loving pair living here and there and everywhere - seems they vanished into thin air. But I saw the rider and Louisa May just the other day snuggling under the snaggly pine. I swear I could hear them making plans for a great new mine. (c) 2020 Larry Kilham Comfort is the old and familiar
bridging heaven and earth. Comfort is shade and ripe apples, pastel patterns and companions dozing. Here are the old apple trees as the generations of the dead with knurled limbs reaching, trying to tell us something. We look for tender bud newborns - the fruit of those we know - or dead brown in Fall's frost with a new cycle in the offing. The cosmos accommodates these episodes in time - from here we know not how - and there's rebirth in the Spring. (c) 2018 Larry Kilham |