Carl Sandburg’s speaker is caught in a small, puzzled daydream, picturing a woman dressed in bold, shimmering colors—black velvet and yellow, orange and green—yet unable to remember whether the woman’s throat flashed blue or red. The speaker questions why the imagination keeps returning to how this person would look covered in hummingbird feathers. The feeling is not quite frustration; it is more like fascination mixed with uncertainty. The woman is vivid but impossible to fix in place, like a hummingbird darting too quickly for the eye. The mood is dreamy and slightly restless, full of bright color and quick motion. It captures what it is like to be drawn to someone whose beauty feels alive, shifting, and hard to hold onto.
Hummingbird Woman — Summary
Why should I be wondering How you would look in black velvet and yellow ? in orange and green? I who cannot remember whether it was a dash of blue Or a whirr of red under your willow throat — Why do I wonder how you would look in hummingbird feathers?