Blossom and Bird
Chris Ellery
February 2, 2025
I give the boiling noodles a stir
then check the ping on my phone.
A text from my son-in-law
with a video of my grandson
reading to his little sister.
He sits cross-legged on the floor
beside her bed holding the leaves
in the light, though she looks more
at him through her sleepy eyes
than at the book. The book
is about hummingbirds, which,
I hear my grandson say, can fly
both backwards and forwards.
I stir the noodles again and lift
the lid on the sauce, which is
simmering with herbal fragrance.
My wife is making the salad
and catches my eyes with her smile.
Time is but a hummingbird, I think.
A thousand hopes and wishes
bloom inside and draw me
with ambrosial sweetness,
which I can’t even begin
to put into words.
Chris Ellery is a retired teacher living in San Angelo. His most recent collection of poems is One Like Silence, offering a vision of solidarity and union: "In silence, the lover perceives the oneness."