hummingbird's shadow

hummingbird’s shadow

at the empty feeder

ZenRiver Warm-Up

Chase barking at the back door cancelled the rest of this morning’s Jian Ghomeshi program. Poet/playwright/novelist/reporter/raconteur/boxer Jim Christy was at the back door with his gold-toothed smile, and we continued our acquaintance over late morning coffee.

The furnace guy came and went in less than half an hour, $100 richer for his labours. Dr. John agreed to share this beautiful spring day with Chase and me at ZenRiver Gardens, so beer was purchased and the daily trek to ZenRiver was underway.

Driving down the dirt

Malone Quarry Road

we spied John Hamley’s (snowflea) green econobox parked on the verge of ZenRiver. We could see John’s outline from the road, sitting in the rocking chair on the shaman shack deck. We hadn’t visited with John since his return from his trip to Cuba, and the three of us drank beer and chatted for half an hour.

I wandered off, shovel and rake in hand, to spread more of the five yards of topsoil by ZenRiver’s entrance. PurdyFest  preparations. Dr. John remained on the deck, busy with his laptop. He has grandly named this writing aspect of ZRG “The Basho Writers’ Colony”.

Dirt spread, Chase and I returned to relax on the deck with the two Dr. Johns. We began discussing haiku, and snowflea joked about all the “Mac/haiku” currently being published, and I spouted a horrible spontaneous Mac/haiku:

beer in hand/dog at my feet/moon in sky.

The easy camaraderie turned to reverie, and I noticed a fascinating shadow bobbing on the trunk of an apple tree. It was too defined to be a leaf, and when I raised my gaze, a disappointed hummingbird buzzed away from the unfilled feeder and zipped across the river.