How filled with profound envy I become when my eyes settle upon a bird in flight. How jealous I am of this simple thing.
Lifted by a harmonious play of feathers brushing against air, the angelic sight too often leaves me adrift in a dreamscape that gifts me with such an ability, a place wherein I soar majestically over mountains and woodlands and oceanic vistas, where my vision devours the entire world in great sweeping arcs born of flight.
With all our rushing to and fro, and with all our scampering and scurrying, I fear we do not see as these creatures see, for our view from the sky can only be artificial at best, unnatural to our earthbound lives. What must this existence look like to those who ride the winds?
To rise on thermals with wings held firmly against the sky… To perch in treetops and survey the land to which so many are forever anchored… To lavish my sight with the gift of visions meant for none but those who swim in the vastness of the heavens… To be like a god amongst insects…
What fanciful magic I see in birds. What want I feel in the presence of that which they take for granted.
The brush of a feather against the air. It’s nothing more complicated than that.
[all photos of turkey vultures (Cathartes aura); bad of me for not using the polarizing filter; it would have helped tremendously with these shots]