Fallen Angels

It's rare to see a hummingbird, at least, it is where I happen to live.  Occasionally, however, one will appear in the yard, flitting quickly from branch to branch, never staying long, gone as quickly as it arrived.  Always unexpected, always moving, always so startlingly small.  Barely bigger than a large bug, one never expects to see them anywhere but in the air.  We never think of them ceasing movement, never think that they might alight, might nest, might die.  Until one day, during your daily walk, you find one on the side of the road behind your house, broken, lifeless, forgotten.  Your heart stops for a moment then, in empathy, helpless dread.  You wonder if it was the same one who'd last paid your little yard a visit two weeks before, and you wonder how it died.  Did it meet with some malicious accident?  Was it struck by a car?  Or did its wings simply get too tired?  Did it struggle for life at the end, for flight or did it drop like a stone?  Did it cry?

Photo Credit: The photo is my own.