Feathers graceful in flight whisper silently through air heavy with morning brightness.  My feeble ears strain to listen to that which cannot be heard.  It is the unflapping of wings lifted on thermals I cannot see and winds I do not feel.

What cannot touch my mind in sound instead satiates my hungry eyes.  They are eager to consume visions others do not behold, and this hawk, this predator, this winged master of the heavens gives of its image freely such that I am filled.

Ravenous I am, a glutton at nature’s board.  How she sups with me in wondrous splendor, a vision I can call my own with only her hand next to mine.  What she serves I need, consume, thrive upon.

Only when talons vanish in distance am I fully aware of the hawk’s prowess in flight.  Not once has it beaten its wings.  Not once has it displayed effort for its gains, yet gain it does, rising high, lifted effortlessly into celestial blue.

Then another joins it.  Awestruck and envious, I watch the second soar up to meet the first.  Together they spiral in circles drawn on a canvas made of sky.

Upward.  Upward they go.  And I wish to meet them there, to defy gravity’s mire in which I stand, to swim through the atmosphere with such ease.

When it is already too late, the grackles and mockingbirds notice the threat.  They climb to give futile chase.

And I watch.