Sunday, December 11, 2011

Signs and Wonders

The backdrop of the entire day was usual. Get up. Go to work. Go to lunch. Go home.

..............

So, as I'm driving to work I glance down to change the radio station and look up to see... maybe four feet ahead of me... over the hood, my huge Hawk straining for lift because he's carrying another bird, whose feet are tight with shock against it's chest. My breath just hung, somewhere, and it's a miracle I didn't run into something. And then he was gone.

To me, that Hawk is magic and so was the moment... but for the quarter mile I had before arriving to work I alternated between wonder and sorrow, wonder and sorrow, as what I had just seen at such close range kept playing in my head.

Having some time I pulled over on an empty street to have a cigarette and be with that moment. The music that was playing on Satellite Radio was spare and soaring and beautiful and so I looked to see the name of it. 'Hawk Above the Hammock'.

Went to lunch and drove to the Lost Place. Put it in Park, looked up and there was my Hawk wind-dancing with the Kestral who lives there... diving and spinning and disappearing... What a gift. I rarely see him so often.

Ran an errand and pulled into the parking lot at work. Getting out of the car I noticed a crow in a tree across the street, cawing so loudly and urgently and oddly that he sounded like a dog barking. And then more came, cawing back and he rose to meet them and swept east.... where there were Seagull's crying and dipping and diving frantically. And I wondered.. Is he here? And, yes, there was my Hawk swooping. And the crows went after him as the cowardly gulls hung back and he lazily flew north into the blue and I stood there, agape.

Off work, turn on the car and the radio pops on. First words I hear (it's set to NPR) is "The hawk is kiting maybe 15 feet above us"... a piece about a man who believes we need natural urban spaces just a much as we need the pristine remote areas.

And I think, there are more things in Heaven and Earth than I can dream of (Shakespeare) and I've been handed a Hawk's blessing.

2 comments:

  1. Hill-country folks say you see a hawk like that to know you'll be protected and blessed that day. A spirit sign of reassurance. But you've figured that out instinctively. Signs and wonders indeed! How special you are.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you, Grizz. The 'meetings' went on for so long, I feel like I've been blessed for a year. And wouldn't that be relief?

    ReplyDelete