Hummingbird

There it is, blue and glorious but so small. It darts around; its small compass of being is sufficient to keep it centred in reality as if it were a gyroscope in flight. To do this, it expends energy quickly; its heart must be as much a metronome as the quartz crystal in my titanium watch.

Sometimes, caught up in the moment of my work, I feel the same way. The horizons of my vision shrink, everything is blue-shifted as it comes towards the singularity which is being, doing, moving, thinking, feeling — all in one. I am in the zone. My work hums along.

Like the hummingbird, the integrated action, the integrated purpose, the integrated focus all lead to a single product. For the bird, it is life. For me, it is the writing. I feel like the famous swordsman, played by the White Lion, who once said, "Don't force me to defend myself; it might force you to defend yourself." All he wanted was to be left alone to write poetry, as I recall.