A Hummingbird by Any Other Name

Hummingbird enjoying the year's first blossoms

I was enjoying the beauty of the first tree blossoms against a blue sky when I noticed a tiny hummingbird flitting from flower to flower.  I love how poets describe hummingbirds: 

• “Thou insect bird!  Thou plumed bee!”  — Royall Tyler, “Ode to the Hummingbird”
• “Enchanted thing,”  “Darling sprite”  — Jess Campbell Rae, “Hummingbird”
• “Bright whirligig” — Cyrus Curtis III Cassells, “The Hummingbird”
• “A flash of harmless lightening, A mist of rainbow dyes,” — John Banister Tabb, “The Hummingbird”
• “A pure vibration” — Arnold Craig, “You Are the Hummingbird That Comes”

The Humming-bird
by Emily Dickinson

A route of evanescence
With a revolving wheel;
A resonance of emerald,
A rush of cochineal;
And every blossom on the bush
Adjusts its tumbled head, —
The mail from Tunis, probably,
An easy morning’s ride.

Hummingbird eyeing blossom

Bright whirligig

Plumed bee

A pure vibration

And then the hummingbird flitted away, and I was left to gaze at "just" blossoms.

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