South Fork Poetry: ‘Hummingbirds’

How do the hummingbirds survive the storms?

At our feeder again when all is blasted and down, 

oaks and hickories twisting even now. The birds

yet come to feed before the long trip they must take.

Here on our anniversary, their dancing bodies, hovering,

remind us of our own journey to who knows where.

Buffeted by bankruptcy, flayed by cancer, torn

by arguments reddening the breast, we still feed

on this sweet food seeping from the air between

our bodies, holding us captive to the other. We must

journey together, the rhythm of our impossible wings

lifting us into other tropics of our own devise.

From “Neuron Mirror” by Virginia Walker and Michael Walsh. Ms. Walker, who lives on Shelter Island and teaches English at Dowling and Suffolk Community College, will read from her work at the Unitarian Universalist meetinghouse in Bridgehampton tomorrow at 7 p.m. along with Rosalind Brenner and other poets.