Change of season

September is a good month
to reconsider your life.
There will be raindrops
clinging to the windows,
and yellow leaves
littering the edges of lawns.

You may remember
the hummingbird feeder,
hung too late in the season,
that has attracted zero
hummingbirds, the red nectar
merely evaporating
rather than drank
through their slender black bills,

but something tells you,
maybe they’ve been sipping
their syrup on the sly,
serendipitous in their silence
and avoidance of your time,
your brief interludes
between work and chores
where you’ve sat and waited
for their wings to arrive.

You should take that feeder down,
so they’re not tempted
to forgo their migration
for the appeal of an easy meal,
their tiny bodies
are not equipped
to survive the winter.