Today, I watched a sparrow mimicking a hummingbird.
Fluttering. Fluttering.
Hovering,
for a moment in the air.
Caught like a dog on the end of its leash,
in a fantastic strain of suspended energy.
She seemed,
I thought,
as I watched from the window,
to be urging her brown-gray body
into a jeweled,
thumb-sized,
nectar-fed,
self.

And then,
in a moment,
she dropped.
And flew from her longing,
brown-gray and
bug-hungry.