Ode to Hummingbirds

The whole forest was on fire, but her wings weren't streamlined for swift escape flights.

She struggled against her own limitations.

When the water's cool extinguished the unbearable heat, she thought she made it. ... until the panic shook her heart once again. Water pressure kept her suspended in the middle of the blue fluid, half way between the surface and the bottom before a sudden but timely, turbulent, current snatched her and pulled her up.

Gasping for air, she was alive - the one who could neither fly fast in the air not breathe in the water.

With her eyes closed and plumage looking soaked on the body still unconscious, her beak opened up, and a song so swollen spilled out from her little chest. The Songbird's melody echoed amongst steep barren rocks until it was swallowed by the roar of a waterfall.

She woke up terrified. Her wings were frozen. Was she alone in this world she could not recognize?

Songbird remained in that same spot where she woke up for some time. No one came to see her, except the lovely song of the mighty waterfall that was always there. In her ears, so sensitive, this constant melody brought secret sparks of joy, and she felt surges of vitality light up in her soul. This mysterious sparkly energy splashed around her bones and muscles, animating the heavy body that kept her down.

She managed to pull herself up and propping her wings against the earth, she balanced on her tripod feet. Slowly, Songbird waddled to the banks of a river and peeked up then down, her eyes wide in amazement and awe of the stunning views of nature.

A spray of sparkly drops with a sash of rainbow colors tied around its heavy waist, hovered in the blue sunny air. A pleasant breeze took the rainbow spray by the hand and together, they glided over and wrapped themselves around the Songbird's dull looking plumage. When she looked at her wings, she saw they glimmered in the colours of the rainbow.

Dressed in a sparkly gown with two rainbow sleeves, Songbird rose to the sky like a shiny star. Soft sound waves of her flapping wings were swallowed by the mighty waterfall. Its roar overwhelmed her whole being as she flew closer to it, giving her power to fly higher. Brilliance flooded the air where the skylight kissed the reflective glaze of the water surface. As she glided on the shine of this life-giving light, her spirit expanded, making her body light, her flight easy. She soared to yet unexplored heights, joyfully turning in the air with her eyes closed and with her belly pumping out the songs of thanks to the environment that healed her.

When Songbird opened her eyes, she saw misty fog swirling around what may have been the highest peaks of a giant thrusting cliff way above the clouds. In her nostrils, the mist felt like a fluid made of crushed grainy dust, that also compromised her recently acquired palette of protective colours on her feathers. All she could see inside the foggy belt was white darkness.

Feeling that she could become completely fog-blinked, Songbird flapped her wings so frantically that she flew over the cliff and stormed down the other side of the precipice. As she reached the place where the fog broke into fluffy clouds which bounced on the bungee cords of sunshine, Songbird relaxed a bit, yet remained aware that even on the other side of the cliff, she was the only bird in the air – alone the way she had been ever since she escaped from the burning forest.

Regardless, her spirits sparked up again when she noticed her rainbow gown fluttering around her against the backdrop of the golden-orange warmth. She sneezed to clear the last remains of the grainy fluid dust from her airway, and sneezed again and again. And then, it became worse. She started to cough and flashbacks of the forest fire flooded her.

After surviving the fire, her breathing was very sensitive. Even a thought of her traumatic past experience made her gasp for air. This time, however, it was real. As she flew closer down to where the cliff smoothed out into a valley, she became entangled into drifty wisps of smoke. To her surprise, she realized that the smoke was not a result of fire, but that it emerged from water. This smoke smelled medicinal to her, so she followed its spiral down to where the water seemed to boil.

Songbird didn't know that it was steam and not smoke that rose in the air. Coming close to the water to satisfy her curiosity, she burnt her beak. Flinching in pain, her wings took her up and backwards, and without seeing where she was going, she bumped and fell in a dark green bush of a plant with silverish sheen on its pillow-like leaves. When she rubbed her beak against the leaves to relieve the pain, the plant gave off the medicinal smell that had attracted her to the boiling waters.

Her heart was pounding. She was previously unaware of her ability to fly backwards to escape danger. In disbelief she looked at her rainbow wings. For the sheer sake of an experiment, she tried rotating her wings in various directions. She could fly backwards and sideways, she discovered.

Carried away with her newfound abilities, Songbird hardly noticed that her tripod feet were becoming coated in resin-like clusters of beads. Being transparent, she, at first, did not notice the plant's seeds on its leaves until her feet started to feel sticky. Trying to avoid being stuck to a surface, she relied on her wings to keep her in the air at all times. Without a break and with so much practice, her wings became fast and with this skyrocketing speed, the number of her flaps grew exponentially. The movement of her wings started to appear like a still picture of eternity suspended in the air. Wide-eyed, Songbird remembered that she had seen hummingbirds fly in the shape of eternity, but never expected that she herself would have such skill to move her little wings into shiny blue stillness. Her propeller wings knocked down the silverish leaves of the fragrant plant and she observed them drift down into the geyser.

She followed them and the sweet smell of the steamed leaves became stronger. The longer she flitted around the hotspring, the more its temperature became hospitable to her presence, so she managed to get very close to the steaming waters.

Songbird glided onto a rock that held its face above the bubbling wetness, sat down, gracefully fluffing her feathers like a ballerina would her skirt, and plunged her feet in the geyser. The resin melted off her feet, and a plume of smoke rose up in her face. Of medicinal potency, the mellow smell of herbs sent her flying higher than ever to a place of discoveries and spiritual growth, where she started to feel at home.

II

Her life broke into splinters when a sudden storm jolted Songbird into a different reality. The waters that once had been blue and sparkly turned dark. They rose in the air and flowed backwards to disappear in their own wells. Howling winds knocked Songbird into the raging waters that tossed her around and pulled her under. She responded by tickling the tummy of the giant, mean waves. As they laughed, their muscles relaxed and became springy. She jumped on their stomach, which became like a trampoline, and hurled herself high up above them. Reaching the air, she gasped and opened her eyes. All that she could see behind the receding waters was a parched and broken landscape.



III

She woke up in front of a tiny bird who was crying.

Humongous tears swelled under his eyelids and rolled down the dusty tear-streaked cheeks of this shiny purple blue beak, whose wings' flutter she recognized to be in a shape of eternity. His sighs were audible, and she could not help but feel them in her own heart. When Hummingbird finally opened his eyes, he noticed Songbird. It was a miracle to see another bird in the hostile environment.

They found themselves in a long silent dialogue, feeling like one, the two birds that just saw each other. Sensing, however, that it was the end of time, painful grief overwhelmed the Songbird's soul, for she had to say goodbye to this love before it could even begin.

Tearful, Songbird broke the silence and spoke in a soft tune, which appeared to be familiar to his own ears. "I marvel at your wings," she told Hummingbird. "When I lived in a land with lights so brilliant and waters so sweet and healing, I could move my wings fast and in full circles, just like you are right now."

Listening to her, Hummingbird started to have a funny feeling that they may know each other in ways unrevealed.

"I used to live in a forest which was engulfed in fire that incinerated homes of many animals,"said Hummingbird. "They scattered and fled to a safer place. I myself stayed doing everything I could to stop the inferno. I carried in my beak the frosty glacier water my friend Silverlake shared with me, and dropped it on the burning forest. And so, I flew back and forth until I became very thirsty. In my very last flight, I opened my beak, but before the fire could lick the falling drop of water, I swooped down and drank it. It was from that time on, that I could hear the melody of a very sad song, similar to the one I just heard you sing.”

“I also lived in that forest and I tried to escape the fire, but my wings were too slow,” said Songbird, surprised to hear this story so familiar to her. "I was unable to escape the fire, and I wouldn't know how, but I woke up in a beautiful world full of light and sparkly waters."

“Is it possible that you were saved in that drop of water I swallowed?” Hummingbird asked in disbelief. “My heart's been a refuge to many and a teacher,” he began, and then as if struck by a lightning, said with conviction, "You entered my heart in that drop of water I drank to survive."

Songbird felt that this may be very true. Tears sparkled up her eyes, and a song full of praise and thanksgiving poured out: “So, the waters..., the magnificent streams and waterfalls that healed me, were in your soul” sang Songbird excitedly, "and you, being a hummingbird, must have naturally fed them with the flower nectar...that's why they were so sweet..."

“True, but the flowers are all gone now," Hummingbird interrupted her. "Fruit trees are wilted. Humans have replaced them with flowers and trees made of plastic. Their leaves are keeping the sun out. Without natural nectar and fruit flies, and without the sun and warmth, almost all hummingbirds have perished."

Their dialogue resumed in silence.

Songbird knew that her friend was dying and that she had to save him. She went out to scout the cold world made of concrete and plastic, where machines worked constantly, making terrible, terrible noise. Songbird's wings did not require energy of the flower nectar. She could survive on few seeds, only if she could find them.

Time passed. When Songbird returned, Hummingbird was laying on his back, but his eyes were still warm and blinking.

“I brought you a gift,” she said, and from a strap on her back, she pulled out a finely carved and painted paddle.

“I think, I will survive,” she continued. “I found a rare person who was happy to see a bird and share of their stash of hidden seeds. They are planting some of them and hoping that they would sprout into plants that need birds to pollinate them. I think flowers will grow again, but it will take time. Until then, THIS PADDLE IS FOR YOU!!”

Hummingbird was too weak to say anything at this point. Only a faint glimmer appeared in his eye.

Songbird took him gently in her arms. His body was very light and she could lift him easily. Bringing him close to her face, she placed Hummingbird and his paddle in a tear canoe she managed to keep in her eye. She flung her head back, and the canoe set out on a journey to her soul.

That was the place where Hummingbird had survived the big environmental crisis until the times when the Creator's planet grew back again in all its glory.

Starlight

Kawartha was a girl who lived with her grandmother in a little cobhouse on an island in the middle of the mighty dark blue seas. During the day, the island was always sunny and warm. In the evenings, gusts of winds whirled, bringing fresh air and spreading a blanket of salty magic dust.

Every night before going to sleep, Kawartha looked up to the sky. Kawartha counted the stars. Kawartha searched for the twinkling shapes and patterns the stars drew on the blackboard of the universe.

The starlight shone on Kawartha's hair and her forehead, the arch of her nose and her cheeks. The starlight bathed in her eyes and seeped deep down into her heart, making her soul glow.




Kawartha and her grandmother lived by the light of the stars at night. But one eve, out of the blue, the island sank into darkness.

Kawartha knew that something was wrong. She feared that the stars had been sucked away into a big black hole, but her grandmother disagreed.

“Grandma,” Kawartha's muffled voice quivered, “It's so dark. I can't see anything. Could you please find our candles?”

“Good idea,” said the grandma as she shuffled slowly in her leather moccasins across the earthen floor of a tiny living room, taking one step at a time.

“Thank you,” echoed Kawartha's voice as her grandmother disappeared in the basement looking for a stash of their beeswax candles.

“You're welcome,” grandma's voice echoed back. Unable to see each other, they kept talking. Hearing each other's voices helped them keep in touch.

From then on Kawartha and her grandmother had to light candles every night because the stars did not come back, and the sky was very very dark.



Kawartha missed the stars very much. Every day, she went a bit further into the woods looking for them. She thought the stars had probably fallen down from the skies and believed that she could find them.

The longer Kawartha stayed away from her little cobhouse, the deeper grew the frowns on her grandmother's forehead.

“Grandma, please don't worry. I feel safe in the woods,” pleaded Kawartha.

“Forest animals are my friends and they will help me find the stars.”

Holding Kawartha gently in her arms, her grandmother took a deep breath.

“I believe that you'll find the stars if you look for them,” she said with a heavy sigh. “I have seen the starlight in your heart. The glow of your soul will guide you. Make the skies shine again, Kawartha! The light in the skies will show you your way back home.”

“Thank you grandmother,” sang Kawartha with joy flaring in her heart.

“You're welcome,” whispered grandma, and weak in her body, she sat down, looking away in the distance.




Deep in the woods, Kawartha had to knock on many doors. Sometimes she had to knock over and over again because some animals were fast asleep, and needed time to wake up.

“Please open the door,” Kawartha's voice rang like a bell. “I want to ask if you'd seen the stars!”

Owl's beak appeared through the window of its nesthouse.

“Shhhh,” mama owl spoke softly, “my owlets are asleep, please don't wake them up.”

“Oh I'm sorry Ms. Owl,” whispered Kawartha, “I wanted to ask if you'd seen the stars.”

Ms. Owl scratched her feathery chin.

“Our skies've been very dark lately,” she admitted. "I could hardly see my way around when hunting. My food is running out.”

Knowing that soon she wouldn't be able to feed her owlets without the starlight in the skies, Ms. Owl promised that she would fly far and high to see if she could spot the stars.

“Thank you,” said Kawartha to her new friend.

“Oh you're very welcome,” responded mama Owl. “Thank you for stopping by.”

“You're welcome,” smiled Kawartha.




The next evening, Ms. Owl frantically flapped her wings over Kawartha.

“Please wake up, please wake up, I've seen the stars.”

“You have Ms. Owl?” squeaked Kawartha through her yawn, “thank you for bringing this awesome news.”

“You're welcome Kawartha, but quick, climb up on my back, let's fly together. I want to show you the stars. They had fallen into the ocean on the opposite side of the island. The fish I'd talked to said the stars were waiting for the light which would guide them back to the sky.”

Kawartha sank into the soft feathers on Ms. Owl's back, feeling safe and excited as the owl navigated through the gusts of winds with her wings. As they flew closer to the starlit lagoon, they could see the rainbow-like radiance arising from the salty ocean water.

“Thank you for carrying me to the lagoon of the fallen stars, Ms. Owl,” said Kawartha as she slid down the owl's back after they'd landed.

“You're more than welcome Kawartha. I'm hoping that the skies will light up before I reach my nest,” hooted Ms. Owl as she flew away.




Kawartha found herself alone in the radiance of the starlit lagoon so far far from her home. Suffused in intense rainbow light and dazzled, she fainted.

The next morning, when the sunlight softened the starlight glow from the ocean, Kawartha woke up and could see in the air many doves, butterflies, dragonflies and honeybees. Not feeling alone any more, she got up and came closer to the ocean.

Kawartha scooped the radiant water and washed her face with it. As she was combing her hair, fish started to jump in the air and splash back into the sea. Kawartha stopped and listened. She heard the fish complain about the light of the fallen stars. It was just too bright for them to sleep at night.

The fish asked Kawartha to, p l e a s e, take the stars back to the skies!!!

“Huh,” Kawartha let out a heavy sigh. How could she do it, she wondered.




The next morning, Kawartha and the ocean inhabitants held an emergency meeting.

“Let's pull up the stars from the bottom of the ocean to its surface,” agreed the sea animals. “The stars are light in the water so it won't be difficult to carry them.”

“Thank you,” said Kawartha, and the sea animals said, “you're welcome.”

Soon, the stars floated on the ocean waves.

“Oh thank you,” said Kawartha to the fish, sea stars, sea horses and seashells.

“You're welcome,” they responded, “but please don't forget to ask the birds to take the stars into their beaks and fly them to the sky.”

“Thank you for reminding me to talk to the doves. I sure will,” Kawartha assured them.

“You're welcome,” said the sea animals and disappeared in the ocean.




Kawartha looked for the doves.

“There's an emergency situation and your help is needed. Please come out to the meeting,” she called.

With the elegant flapping of their wings, doves settled on the lowest branches of the nearby trees. They heard what the sea animals did to bring the stars to the ocean surface and it suddenly dawned on them.

“Let's pick up the stars with our beaks and fly them up to the sky,” they spoke in unison.

“Thank you,” said Kawartha and the doves said, “you're welcome.”

Soon there were flocks of doves over the ocean surface trying to pull the stars up with their beaks. But the stars were way too heavy for the doves to fly them to the sky.

So, the doves called the butterflies, “Please come help us pull up the stars to the sky.”

And so the butterflies did.

“Thank you,” said the doves and the butterflies said, “you're welcome.”

But still, the stars were very heavy.

The butterflies called the dragonflies, “Please come help us pull up the stars to the sky.”

And so the dragonflies did.

“Thank you,” said the butterflies and the dragonflies said, “you're welcome.”

But still, the stars were very heavy.

The dragonflies called the honeybees, “Please come help us pull up the stars to the sky.”

And so the honeybees did.

“Thank you,” said the dragonflies and the honeybees said, “you're welcome.”

When the doves, butterflies, dragonflies and honeybees together pulled on the stars, they were able to lift them in the air. They fluttered their wings faster and faster because the stars were becoming heavier and heavier as they were raised higher up in the air. Heavy beads of sweat dripped from Kawartha's forehead. It was unbearable to watch the effort needed to lift the stars up to the sky.

In a moment of terrible anguish, Kawartha heard a booming voice, “Light please!” and saw the floodlight of sparkly stardust fan far and wide out of her soul. Suddenly, the winged people gained enormous strength and flew the stars to the sky.


In the evening, the island was lit again with the twinkling light of the starry skies – and everyone celebrated!

The End