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."