Afternoon Walk.
Jun. 29th, 2002 10:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rejectomorphIn mid afternoon, the shadows of the tops of the pines fall on the north-south streets. They remind me of Asian calligraphy. I walk through these shadows, past the flamboyant rhododendron and oleander blossoms that mark the early weeks of summer, past the glittering fountains of lawn sprinklers, past the yard with the garage sale and the yard with children playing some inexplicable game of their own devising, down to the end of the last street along the canyon.
There, where a thick growth of brush and trees was removed to make room for a new house, I can look over the roof of the completed garage and catch a glimpse of the distant ridges of the Sierra, beyond the canyon where Oroville Lake lies. Among the thick treetops that here lie lower than my line of sight, I hear the songs of those birds that never come to my more densely settled street. The day is hot, but the songs are surprisingly cooling. The view from this spot is all green forest and cloudless blue sky, but the songs are like colors for the ears.
In the distance, I see a black speck in the sky. It is a circling hawk. Though the birds nearby are singing all the while, I cease to hear them. My thoughts are with the hawk, and the hawk is silent. It flies lower, and vanishes into the canyon for a moment, then rises again and flies away behind the ridge to the south. It carries the silence with it. After a moment, I turn from the song filled canyon and head home through the calligraphed streets of the everyday world. I see no more hawks.
There, where a thick growth of brush and trees was removed to make room for a new house, I can look over the roof of the completed garage and catch a glimpse of the distant ridges of the Sierra, beyond the canyon where Oroville Lake lies. Among the thick treetops that here lie lower than my line of sight, I hear the songs of those birds that never come to my more densely settled street. The day is hot, but the songs are surprisingly cooling. The view from this spot is all green forest and cloudless blue sky, but the songs are like colors for the ears.
In the distance, I see a black speck in the sky. It is a circling hawk. Though the birds nearby are singing all the while, I cease to hear them. My thoughts are with the hawk, and the hawk is silent. It flies lower, and vanishes into the canyon for a moment, then rises again and flies away behind the ridge to the south. It carries the silence with it. After a moment, I turn from the song filled canyon and head home through the calligraphed streets of the everyday world. I see no more hawks.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
noticing
Date: 2002-06-30 07:44 am (UTC)About that hawk - As you know, I've been a birder for most of my life and as such have seen all kinds of birds in all kinds of habitats in all kinds of weathers. How often I have reflected on how the appearence of a hawk or other raptor, even if only a distant speck in the sky, can command our senses so magnetically. I've often wondered if other people noticed this and now I know that indeed some do.
Thanks for sharing this.
no subject
Date: 2002-06-30 09:22 am (UTC)