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Questions to Tammy Ditmore (tammy.ditmore@pepperdine.edu)

In the Latest Issue of Christianity & Literature:

My Fellow Creatures
Do a Better Job
Than I

Mary Kennan Herbert

Everything shuts down
in the hummingbird
when it must endure
extreme cold in
paradise, where there
is always a price
to pay.

To survive the icy
nights it shuts down
everything but brain,
heart, and liver, yields
itself to the cold,
and keeps a nugget

of life safe until dawn,
when all systems
are go. I'm not
that good
in the scheme of
things. My ticker
insists on keeping
the pace,

and extremities keep
on pulsing,
everybody wants
to get into the act.
Hands and feet
could freeze because
of poor decisions
at command

central. The wolf licks
its chops, thinking
of a warm,
gutsy dinner.
Lucky hummingbird.
Tiny perfect jewel,
who can fail to be
impressed

with your efficiency,
your aesthetic
lessons for us,
your captured
sunlight, your mission
to deliver nectar
like a bee,
pleasing the Deity.

Wolf, you can quickly
take me now,
an old body
from the freezer.
Little things,
however, may
escape your notice.
Small, warm,
dazzling.

In the Latest Issue of Christianity & Literature: