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My 7 thoughts: Love more; care more; worry less; enjoy more; notice more; write things; be in nature every day.

An encapsulating poem:

A small bird

long thin bill, fluffy feathers

gem green on its back

An Anna’s hummingbird, it turns out

froze to death outside our house

while we were freezing (not to death)

over Thanksgiving in Colorado.

Looking for food

(our feeder was empty)

It dive-bombed its own image

hit the sliding door

fell to the wood deck

caught its foot in a crack

and—stunned—

laid there until cold overtook it.

It wasn’t torpor

(I looked that up)

Because the tiny fellow didn’t move at all

for a good five days

the wind ruffling downy spots on its swollen face

black eyes turned to slits.

There was a little bird in this world

And then all of a sudden

there wasn’t.

And I can’t get that hummingbird

and its fast-beating once-beating now-stilled heart

out of my mind.

I feel

pain for its end

wonder at its beauty

Gratitude

knowing that every being that has lived is the all of life.

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WOW. This is absolutely beautiful, Nancy! And absolutely true.

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