The Hummingbirds of Rages

A pretty boy with pen and paper tools

Plays the poet’s choir all for fools
Chasing their tails following rules
Burning shadows as their spirit cools
 
The hummingbirds drink of a nectar meant
For the gods to drink in their thrones’ lament
 
The murmurs stop behind the parlor door
Locked-tight prayer locked tight no more
We spilled it out on the hardwood floor
Enough of us cry out for them to ignore
 
The hummingbirds silent in garden fall
Want to sing but mutter nothing at all
 
To hang our harps where foreign rivers run 
Our days as captives had only just begun
Fertile memories, our fathers had done
Weeks of years of toil in the sun
 
The hummingbirds flutter a circuit-strand
Since their hearts stop beating when they land
 
The pretty boy perished a distant way
Dead in the elevator on a dusty day
His obituary read in his resume
We cried to silent heaven, we tried to say
 
The hummingbirds remind the sweet and sad
Sons and daughters of the land we once had