Hummingbird

I shot a hummingbird
from the tip of a douglas fir,
felled by a pellet as it lit
jeweled and flighty
upon a verdant bud

I watched it tumble
green/gold
copper/crimson
branch to branch,
lifeless to the bracken thicket

But I could not find it,
merely stunned perhaps
and recovered to freely drill
the magenta paper-blooms
on salmonberry canes

And summer blazed and waned
and I returned to that tree,
to the mystery of bones revealed
in the matted grass,
a tapered beak curved and black

I held it weightless in my hand
and whispered for forgiveness,
a boy searching
for the limp warm feel of death
and the tack of blood on fingertips