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FROM THE BIOGRAPHY OF THE HUMMINGBIRD

[H]ummingbirds have such a high metabolic rate that they
are almost constantly on the verge of death and must
visit thousands of nectar-rich flowers every day just
to stay alive.

—from "The Sex Life of Flowers," Science 84

The nectar flows in this beak like a ray of light, the
wings shiver and rotate and I am turning, rolling, impaling
another soft-petaled gilia, the red tissues blazing in my
eyes, the pollen a fog in the throat, the thirst a terrible
burning—and for the moment I am rooted here—until we both
are empty. The virtuosity, the speed, have nothing to do
with lust or ergonomics or the geometry of yard or meadow.
No, it is all in the stark economy of movement, in knowing
where to turn, in feeling the heart slow down and start to
bubble helplessly on the verge of arrest, and just at that
instant the beak slides in again and the nectar flows like
prayer and the lagging heart climbs like a bird in flight.

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