Exaggerated Promise

It's the same dramatic ritual every morning...

The wren who visits my geraniums hopefully

searches among the bright red blossoms

and discovers all over again the simple truth

that brightness and exaggerated promise

seldom deliver anticipated satisfaction.

Apparently having learned nothing from me

she soon flies away frustrated to my neighbor's

exotic hanging garden where blue, yellow and yes

redder than blood orchids shout louder than roses

that they are always ready to deliver mosquitoes

and soft bellied caterpillars to anything that flies.

But orchids have little to offer except beauty

which is more than enough when the moon is full

and chicks have had their fill of fat worms

but hunger is huge when a blazing sun is rising

so somewhere in the great green wet promise

there must be something to take home for lunch.

An energetic hummingbird in my neighborhood 

settles for a decidedly unspectacular sure thing.

The tiny green blur whizzes instantly onto my porch

to sit at the plastic feeder that I fill with sugar water

apparently caring not at all what color his food is.