Hummingbird & Cardinal...12 Seasons

It had been three years or 12 seasons, since Hummingbird and Cardinal had laid their leaf pads next to each other at the wing-stretch class.

As their time together increased and the new love fervor decreased Hummingbird would find herself replaying the narrative of how they met over and over again.

Hummingbird—I would always go to wing-stretch class, sure to stretch wings and hold poses but I really went to find moments of stillness. It’s so hard for me to just be still sometimes…

Cardinal- I had heard about the wing-stretch class and living in a four season world can take its toll on even a robust body like mine. Because I’m a seeder, I hunch over and it makes my upper vertebrae very tight. I also heard there was some 'color' at the class.

Hummingbird – We had been sitting next to each, barely chirping. Sometimes, I would try to get my breath to be thee same tempo as Cardinal’s. His was measured and calm and mine was/is still frenetic .

A month or so into their shared class, leafs touching, eyes closed (they were in the stillness pose, not Hummingbird’s strength)Hummingbird just...knew. She knew/felt through every vertebrae that this crimson colored constant would be part of her life for seasons to come. What it looked like or sounded like she did not know. All hummingbird knew was that when she was in Cardinal’s presence her usual 80 wing-beats-a-second would become 200-wing-beats-a-second. Cardinal made her heart race.

12 seasons later, a couple ones where flowers bloomed really late and Hummingbird was unable to find nectar, they were still together. In those frozen seasons, Cardinal would dig deep to find fruit pieces and seeds for Hummingbird often mixing them together in a smoothie-like concoction. Hummingbird treasured these meals, Cardinal eating some seed or bugs (he never mixed carbs and proteins) and Hummingbird slurping the smoothie. It was a blended life.

Mornings. Evenings. In-betweens. Sometimes they would go days without seeing each other. He might need to travel to other yards and lands for food or nest twigs, she may need to find a sun spot, or someplace where flowers still sing. Even in those days apart they would call each other. Cardinal’s succinct, ‘chirp, chirp, chirp’ and Hummingbird’s non-stop buzz could be heard across clouds even as dusk fell.
Hearing Cardinal chirp would be all Hummingbird needed to close her eyes and dream. She knew this was love, real love. It didn’t worry her, make her clench her beak, obsess that much about her bony appearance and bulky brain (Hummingbird was mostly brain, 4.2% of her body weight, the largest proportion in the bird kingdom.),and unlike other loves in her life (the Sunflower, the Hydrangea) they didn’t curl up and leave at the end of a season. Cardinal stayed.


For Cardinal, a life with Hummingbird gave him the backbone to travel farther…to maybe fly higher. Having her song in the back of his head was all he needed to fly father and faster. Maybe a strength beneath his wings.

So as they marked their 12th season together finding the sunniest spot in the yard to lay Hummingbird and Cardinal contemplated their future together. Would they share a nest in the near future? Would they have cardinal hums? Would he make her smoothies so she didn’t have to spend all day and night searching for flowers? What would be their path? They ultimately did not know, but what they did know is that when they closed their eyes and dreamt about tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, they saw each other in those dreams. Cardinal and Hummingbird, constant and chaos, might just make it to forever.