“The brilliant iridescent colors of hummingbirds are … structural colors, not pigment, which means they are reflected by microscopic structural features of the feather surface … composed of layers of tiny air bubbles.”
—Ornithologist David Sibley, “The Basics of Iridescence in Hummingbirds”
The basics of iridescence: the bare bones of that fleeting soap-bubble sheen, a pocket of breath caught in stained-glass evanescence— it will all make complete sense.
The basics of iridescence: the brass tacks of those glancing neon-green glimpses and ruby-throated flashpoints, bearing their beauty in fluorescence— it will all make complete sense.
The way the light changes, the light changes everything— as its waves endlessly advance over some midnight-feathered shore, crashing it into mercurial color and a complete and utter nonsense of wing-flashed brilliance.
Julie Sumner is The Behemoth’s poetry editor. Read more of her work at her blog, windowonwords.com
