Author Archives: indiraganesan

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About indiraganesan

Writer. As Sweet As Honey:A Novel (NY: Alfred A. Knopf), February, 2013 Inheritance: A Novel (NY: Knopf), 1998 The Journey: A Novel (NY:Knopf), 1990 All available from Vintage & Beacon Press

When the Hummingbird Looks You in the Eye

© Conchasdiver | Dreamstime.com

© Conchasdiver | Dreamstime.com

You blink.  It is hard to believe this bullet shaped body, green like a parrots, hovering in front you  and beating its wings so fast, the sound is as thick as a bee hive.  It wanted the lavender astilbe which finally decided to bloom, the specific bloom I was standing next to.  It looked at the bloom, then at me. I f I reached out my hand just a little, I could try to touch it, but I stood still, thinking it would surely move on.  We had a human to bird face-down, I waiting for it to move, and it for me.  I spoke to it all the while, and maybe my voice kept it hovering.  When it finally darted away, I stepped through the garden and turned from the stairs to watch.  It perched on a tree, and only when the coast was clear, waded in.  My metaphors are mixed because the hummingbird is a mix of a bird and bee to me.  I will post the video from last year of the boy and his rescue of a hummingbird below.

Meanwhile, I attended two phenomenal literary events.  One was the Wequassett Literary Luncheon, presented by the Where the Sidewalk Ends Bookstore on Cape Cod.  Every summer,week by week,  guests fill the banquet halls to lunch with old friends and hear various writers talk and read from their new books.  I accompanied J.Courtney Sullivan, author of The Engagements, a book that is engaging from the first page, and Ann Hood, whose most recent book is The Obituary Writer.  It was a lively event, with an audience who listened intently, loving books so much to spend a summer day inside. My table was filled by multi-generational members of a family tree and friends, with makes true the notion books create literal and figurative companions.

Wequassett Inn Literary Luncheon, 2013

Wequassett Inn Literary Luncheon, 2013

Boy& Hummingbird http://youtu.be/LvrcdQWzH-8

Insomnia 1

The night time frogs are keeping me up. They gurgle and burp like little monsters from the woods behind my home. When they stop to catch a breath, the buzzing insects start, not cricket, not locust, but something. The frogs sound thirsty and they sound close. This morning I bathed the yard with sweet-smelling eco-safe and sound skeeter spray. It doesn’t harm anything but the ticks and mosquitoes– I checked– the honeybees still buzzed about, as did the wasp. The roses didn’t wilt, and neither did the zinnia. But I must have disturbed some balance. How could I have not? Does the death of the mosquito from the space of my small yard make the frogs chirp louder? Have I stolen their supper? I drink hot milk with saffron, try to read about Cromwell and the Cardinal, but I am distracted. Someone is out walking their dog. Can they hear the frogs too?