Each spring the hummingbirds hover
over the same place on my patio
Where twenty-four years ago hung
a red plastic feeder filled with sugar water
Four or five fowl generations later
through some unfathomable feat
these offspring flutter wings over
empty air in worship of this sacred spot
And I wonder if my great grandparents
fed off the magnificence of the Rio Grande
Where it divides New Mexican high desert
Blood of Christ Mountains on one side
and burnt amber sunset on the other
Where I am blindly led year after year
to be lit by the sun god's torch
To burn Taos fuel
To feel the whisper
of angel wings on my back
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Ellaraine Lockie is a widely published and awarded poet, nonfiction book author and essayist. Her recent work has been awarded the 2013 Women’s National Book Association’s Poetry Prize, Best Individual Collection from Purple Patch magazine in England for Stroking David’s Leg, winner of the San Gabriel Poetry Festival Chapbook Contest for Red for the Funeral and The Aurorean’s 2012 Chapbook Spring Pick for Wild as in Familiar, in which "Birds of a Feather" was published. Her tenth chapbook, Coffee House Confessions, has just been released from Silver Birch Press. Ellaraine serves as Poetry Editor for the lifestyles magazine, Lilipoh. She is a frequent judge of poetry contests and will be judging Voices Israel’s 2013 Reuben Rose Poetry Competition.
Listen to Chérie Newman's interview with Ellaraine Lockie.