Hummingbirds regularly come to our feeder outside the window to partake of the “goodie juice” we provide.  The feeder can be seen by Rhoda and me from our respective vantage points.  We alert each other as visitors arrive, usually unexpectedly, and they leave almost the same way.  One must be on one’s toes to see them, for hummingbirds don’t stay long.

We have noticed an interesting thing about hummingbirds.  When they approach the feeder and if a wasp is there, they don’t land, or if they do and see a wasp they quickly fly away.  Wasps like hummingbird feeders too and apparently like to sting the hummingbirds, or at least the hummingbirds think they do.  When no wasps are at the feeder, the birds land and drink away.  At this very moment, a hummingbird has come for its morning refreshment and refreshed itself.  Why did it stay?  Because there was no wasp there, it had no fear at the feeder!  The hummingbirds have a rule – wasp at the feeder – fly away – wasp not at the feeder – stay and enjoy the gift of the feeder.

Why can’t people be as wise as the hummingbirds?  Some not only don’t fly , in our case, don’t run from an obvious danger.  They fall for Satan’s overtures and often do not see the spider until they’re caught firmly in the web.  Shakespeare said in his great play, The Merchant of Venice, “There is no vice so simple but assumes some mark of virtue on its outward parts”.  If you have read my other works you know that I am a poet and like to use my poems to illustrate a point.  I would like to take that opportunity again in this essay and include a poem I wrote some time ago which I think is germane to today’s topic.

POKER MAN

Why do you condemn this, that’s in?

Why do you maintain it’s a sin?

Why do you stand so hard

Against a little game of cards?

You can’t prove it’s wrong to me

For I’ve closed my eyes and cannot see

That something is amiss

And I can’t hear the serpent’s hiss.