The Bee Hummingbird
       

No bigger than two pennies side-by-side,
the world's smallest bird can spot a mustard-gold
fleck of pollen inside a trumpet lily,

gauge the sum of nectar cupped in a hibiscus,
catch a drop of rainwater before it slides
from the skin of a ripening mango.

The threadsnake, thinner than pencil lead,
can ride the fissures of limestone,
read the grit and give in an infinite variety of clay,

while the dwarf gecko, three-quarters of an inch
from nose to tail, distinguishes the dawn
in a molecule of heat on its scales.

The earth's circumference can be measured in
a shadow. I ask myself do they ever feel eclipsed
by the giants: the mouthy crow, the muscled boa.

Or if they care at all, whether they only wonder
at the rest of us lacking wings precise enough
to stir the sand.

Copyright © 2010 Candace Pearson All rights reserved
from Hour of Unfolding
Briery Creek Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission