A hummingbird appears right in front of the speaker's face, and everything else in the poem seems to grow out of that small, startling moment. The bird hovers like "an unhoused question," and the speaker responds by spreading his fingers, noticing his own skin wrinkled like old bark. That comparison quietly links the human body to trees, which leads into the second section's memories of childhood: climbing, clinging to trunks, digging for colored glass at an old farm dump.
The mood shifts from wonder to something wistful. The bird's quick movement from "one bright flame to the next" makes the speaker wonder what glowing, rain-soaked beauty comes before a fall. The final question, about where petals might unfurl "if we ever woke up," suggests the speaker feels people often drift through life half-asleep. The hummingbird is alive and fully present, and it reminds him of how much of that presence he has lost since childhood, and how much might still be possible.