From the pineflats of Florida to the canyons of New Mexico we come to share our stories and poems with ourselves -- and with the hummingbirds.

Lorry and I have been leading the Green River Writers Workshop with founder Alice Carney for the last two years, but this is the first year the hummingbirds have taken such an avid interest in it. They write on the air with their wings, humming and buzzing about effortlessly. I stand in my panama cowboy hat with the beaded Indian headband and the hummingbirds dip in under the broad white brim and sing to me of things past, present and soon to come.

Hummingbird, the Navajos say, is healer, medicine man. When you hear his little bell ringing, he's bringing medicine to all who need it. Peaceful, medicinal nectar of flowers. It's in the air, airborne, and in the song of wings moving at a furious pace. So small a creature, so tiny a healer, so great a singer of songs.

We, as writers, share in this divinity of Navajo grace.

And hummingbird music becomes our song, as we speak, write, listen, meditate, and most importantly, remember. For it is in memory that we truly become who we are: beings of light. Not creatures of darkness. But rememberers of light.

A young writer once told me she remembered far back into her earliest time on earth.

"How far?" I asked.

"All the way back to when I was born," she answered.

We can do that. Our minds honeycombed with stored memory.

What follows is a poem written by all of us -- Jane, Fran, Petey, Carol, Liz, Alice, Lorry and Gerry. . . one line each, each line about our mothers, and all of these honest lines true to memory, true to life, true to ourselves. When we finished one round, we started another until we at last came to what we thought was the final sentence.

MOTHER

my mother said she was lace and I was burlap
my mother smiled at the sight of me
my mother sailed
my mother hung this sign in her kitchen: I am sick of cooking
my mother asked john and me to bring back a jar of pickled pigs' knuckles when we returned from new mexico
my mother died at the end of a rope
my mother did not know where she ended and I began
my mother is peaceful now in a garden
my mother washed my mouth out with soap
my mother wore size 6 1/2 shoes and so do I
my mother expressed love by plumping my pillows
my mother channeled radio stations with her teeth
my mother hid her vodka in my grandmother's closet
my mother's closet smelled of cedar
my mother also walked on her tiptoes
my mother died and went to heaven
my mother made chinese dishes with canned la choy products
my mother read all of the oz books to me
my mother danced and smoked and drank and she was a mormon
my mother made me beautiful prom dresses
my mother made liver and onions and they tasted good
my mother made boiled-in-butters for me
my mother was more like my grandfather than my grandmother
my mother taught me how to sew clothes and make muffins
my mother stuck up for me
my mother made me perfect doll clothes but no clothes for me
my mother made her sister lie down on the floor so that my mom could walk up and down her spine
my mother drank vodka and read romance stories and died of a broken heart because she missed daddy
my mother made me a writer
my mother could make a perfect fried egg
my mother was born in the Philippines but she was not a filipino
my mother liked to back the car down the driveway to get her mail
my mother filled the kitchen with the smell of homemade bread
my mother smelled of perfume when she bent down to kiss me goodnight
my mother loved her children