The Hummingbird and the Moon

We had a hummingbird frozen to the outside of our house recently.  When I first noticed it, I stopped stone cold for a moment, wondering what manner of nectar a house produced. But when the little guy didn’t move at my approach, I knew something was up.  Closer inspection revealed that the bird was frozen to the mortar between two bricks, an example of the old lick-the-frozen-flagpole trick gone horribly wrong.

We all examined the necrotic nectar eater as we came and went over the next few days. We scrutinized him from every angle, from the beautiful iridescence of the plumage to the little frozen ball of hummingbird feeder juice that bonded him in his death frieze. The little guy sort of became one of our own until the cold front moved on and one day he did, too.  And we tried not to think why the cat wasn’t so hungry that night.

Driving home this evening, I looked up and right there in front of me was the most beautiful huge moon I’ve seen in a long time. As is seldom the case, I really did see the Man in the Moon, or so it seemed. No haze halo, no obscuring clouds and no intervening freeway lights. Just a perfect moon.

Sometimes it’s so nice not to think too deeply, not to try to figure things out to the last decimal point. Sometimes it’s enough just to notice.