I found pieces of this poem in an old notebook. I don’t remember writing it, but half-finished piece was written in April 2000 (before Ana was even conceived.) It wasn’t finished then and I doubt it’s finished now.
A Long Time Ago…
I dreamed of hummingbirds
and a field of flowers
painting the yard behind my house
Purple and pink and white.
When I woke, the ground still clung to winter,
and there were no hummingbirds
drifting through naked branches.
If I close my eyes I can see their wings,
a blur of busy motion, lost between worlds,
hovering on threads of time and space
carrying souls to the other place.
Out of mist and early morning light
when sunrise is a heartbeat away,
when night fades like the end of sleep,
I might see them
suspended above the trumpet vine
and sweet honeysuckle.