Five Points, Vol. 21, no. 1
Sample Content
Elizabeth Spires
A Hummingbird's Nest
Small, round, green, big
enough for a bird half
the size of a teaspoon.
Made of spider webs,
down, dust, moss,
feathers and filament.
You found it after a night
of wind and sent it to me
across the country.
For years I peered into
an empty space where
a bright green thing hatched
and left. A weightless nest.
A space full of meaning.
The all and the nothing
that a hand cannot hold.
And a voice always asking,
Where do the years go?
They are here, I tell you,
collapsed and collapsing,
the way time and matter
are sucked into a star.
Yet, it is always
a matter of memory
as dust slowly settles
over everything, filling
this nest to the brim.
I hold it in my hand.
It is like holding nothing.
The weight of dust. Of years.