The buckeye blooms,

Her beating heart worn on an emerald sleeve

Holding nothing back.

Her horde of sapphires startles forest gloom —

Each jeweled bouquet-spray a whorl of sun-

   splotched fire.

The winter has been cold with frosts and ice —

Her flame thus all the welcome more.

Less chirp than squeak,

Electric zaps of wing

Announce the hummingbird is here.

Blossoms nod, bouquet aquiver.

No hurry, we, as if suspended, like the bird

Who’s testing, tasting every yellow-throated tube—

Frozen motion like a candle flame, in room without a    

   breath of air.

Still moment this —

With world eclipsed

Silencing the standers-by,

Their conversations hushed.

Even pileated’s jungle cry

And drumming on a trunk:

Hush falls on all.

As suddenly appeared,

Then off it zips

To fuel quickened life

With nectar’s honeyed fire

From honeysuckle’s coral cup

That’s burning bright

In sun-lit tree-tops on the hill.

*Aesculus pavia, South Carolina’s native red buckeye