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| credit: photomatt28 |
I sit on a bench overlooking Tricomali channel. Salt Spring looms long on my right, Saturna anchors the southern horizon. Orcas Island, my childhood neverland, rests futher south still, the hump of its turtle-back a misty blue against a paler sky. This is a view that invites quiet. And so I try -- I try to crouch beneath the cacophony of my thoughts that twirl from one imagining to another. But to no avail. The spirit is willing but the mind is strong, performing rapid-fire feats of gymnastic wonder.
Then, mid-cerebral-spin, I clutch the bench, cowering. A creature so huge it blots out the sun whooshes overhead and perches on the green tower of the Douglas fir under which I sit. With two gigantic flaps, it cups the air and lowers its weightless tonnage 20 ft directly above me. And I hunch beneath this great bird of prey feeling very small and very alive. I sit like this five, ten minutes, aware. And then, tragedy of tragedies, I forget. My attention shifts, my mind ventures from its still and safe hidey-hole and braves a quick scurry down a furrow of thought. And then another. Until I am back on the frenzied fringe of my mind, scampering headless, having lost the centre completely.
But, in my forgetfulness, another miracle: another swoop, this time down and over and so close the beat of the eagle’s wings sends a draft that dances on my face. So close, the arc of each black talon is plain and stark as it curls inward for flight.
Oh Eagle God, you with the power to tear
my heart out,
snatch me from the frayed
fringe of my daydreams
and carry me, dangling limp,
to your aerie
and another land.
