~:: Sometimes, a little magic ::~

May I tell you that when I went out to the barn this morning it was 16 degrees?  I was working in the stalls, putting things to rights when I looked down and there, perched on the ground level rung of one of the panels, I found a neat little hawk.  She was all packaged up, one eye wide, the other a little narrow, almost oval with her wings all tucked in.  And I wondered if she were injured, just sitting there like that as I worked around her.

Our eyes met, and I leaned in closer.  “And what are you doing here?” I asked her.  It never occurred to me to haul out the phone, struggle with my gloves and take a picture of her.  Now I wish I had, she was so lovely, wings striped with browns, neat little head slick and all sky-business.  I was only a foot or so away from her.

She didn’t move.  She didn’t even seem afraid. She just watched me, eye to eye. I turned to go on about my business, still talking to her, afraid she’d broken her wing and that I wouldn’t know how to deal with it.  When I glanced back to see if she was still watching me, she was gone.  Just gone.  Not even a whisper of wing had I heard, and she’d had to take off from an awkward perch.  She was an artist, a dancer, a memory.

The only thing left of her was the hole she left in the air.