I'm living in one place so long,
the birds enlace their nests
with my white hair.
I'd like their recognizing me in return.
I play a game with hummingbirds.
I play the hose in jets and spouts,
and the hummer follows the water,
loops and soars, turns and hovers, leaps.
I shorten the arc toward myself,
and the hummer comes to my hands.
It enters the fine spray; it flies in the spray.
It alights on the tomato cage, and waits,
raises a wing, gets a squirt in one armpit,
and the other armpit. It shows its butt
and wiggles its tail. What's that gold thread?
The hummer is spraying me back.
There's a yellow bird that is barely anything
but a reed, a tube of song.
Its beak opens as wide as its throat, its body,
which trembles through and through.
It's a yellow-feathered skinbag of song,
and it sings all day.
Maxine Hong Kingston, To Be the Poet, Harvard University Press, 2002.