The Courage of the Hummingbird

We have a hummingbird feeder outside our kitchen window. This week, we filled it with sugar water again and, lo and behold, we have had visitors. What fascinating little creatures, so awkward yet so beautiful. It is as if they don't really fly, they hover from place to place. They bless my day.

In a recent issue of Alive Now I saw this poem entitled "Courage" by Debbie Parvin. I think I'll post it in our kitchen.

With Goliath's might, you slice the air with needle sword,

race with monstrous wrath, defend your claim

to ruby water hanging

like a vial of blood in summer's sweetened air.

Yet you are more like David,

dwarf among the feathered flock -

a thimble bug

so slight that, when you light upon the willow's leaf,

it does not move.

Still, God has chosen you, the most unlikely -

fitted you with sequined garb

and fashioned beater wings to bear you

eighteen hundred miles each year to prove

though life may tower giant-like around us

we, the miniscule,

can rise

and hum.

Originally at Musings of a Musical Preacher Read the original ↗