Back when I lived at the lake, I loved to watch the vultures in the trees.  There would be dozens of them in the bare branches each winter.  Patient.  Watching.  Sometimes they’d be on the ground and I’d marvel at their size and the breadth of their wingspan.  With their bald heads and dull black feathers they were ugly in a way that commanded respect.  In the air they’d hover in the thermals, then edge forward as if by magic.  They were my chthonic symbol.

Here on the farm, I see the occasional vulture, and they are constantly in the sky as I drive.  I’ve found a new love though with another raptor, a bird of action that I love as much as my bird of mysteries.  The red tailed hawk.  They are everywhere, and when I think they have abandoned me I hear their cry pierce the air.  I see them on the power lines, scanning the fields below for prey.  I see them circle, rising and falling in the currents.  I see them dive to the ground, an arrow to their mark.  I see them dance above me in the sky.

“What would you do if you had wings?