A moment later and the feathers rippled again, the bird in a last moment of motion before stillness.Ī summer of drought had dried the fields, shriveled the corn, parched the soybeans, cracked the earth. I sipped my coffee, content with the poses of the cat, until a fluttering led me to see it carried in its mouth a bird, not yet dead but caught and dying, and what I had thought a lovely effect of the light was the intermittent motion of its wings. As a morning this one began with a feeling of peace. I watched a tidy cat step along the fence of my back yard, the morning light enveloping its soft fur, the cat with easy footfalls passing beneath a last burst of color from hybrid azaleas I had planted there, that bloomed three times a year. As always I woke before dawn with a certainty that my sleep was over for the night, so I rose and dressed and paced. A day in fall, a day of descent, of the receding of heat and the first touch of lighter air, brought a sense to our town that a tide had turned and easier days would follow.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |