Thermals rise off the sides of the hills as the sun goes down, and I rise
with them, wings spread wide to catch their lift.
Warm air catches at my pinion feathers, and I rise from the side of my
hill. It's like holding your hands out in a windstorm, only to be lifted up
into the cloudy sky.
And I cry out for the sheer joy of it as I ride. My voice is piercing,
ringing out into the infinite sky.
I pump hard with my wings, pull up before the earth, and soar out long
and level over the land, watching as it passes beneath me.
Tiny clumps of greenery pass below as I climb, my shadow weaving
between theirs as they sail below.
Old and ruined farmhouses pass me by, forlorn and yet somehow serene and
stoic in their age. I see my schoolmates' homes, long driveways with their
own thermal currents, the sudden downdraft of a well dampened wood. It all
passes before me, and I feel like calling out again so I do.
I circle and swoop and catch the air in my feathers. This is my
kingdom, all above, and all below.
Here is an old well, there an abandoned farmhouse, cattle trails wander
through a neighbors fields - that's a schoolmates house next to the edge of the
wood, and his fathers' in the back yard cooking barbecue, leaving a smoke
column trailing into the sky.
I see a pond with minnows and waving grasses beneath its surface, but
when I look around me there are many ponds in many farms, stretching over
the horizon.
Still, pink tufts of cloud scatter from the setting sun - incandescent
swirls of mother-of-pearl, glistening like scales lost from a salmons'
belly. My soul calls out for those empty spaces - the spaces between the
clouds where the blue is deep and infinite - and I climb to meet the
emptiness....
And finally, the last rays of golden light touch the western hills. I
watch the sun set over my right wing as I sail and soar, turning and diving
beyond the horizon, winds caressing my wings and belly.
Shadows gather and lengthen as the light fades, and with the darkness
comes the stars: alone at first and then in handfuls, and finally I am
flying into a sea of diamonds set in blackness as the air grows cool and the
silver light of the moon catches and glints off the gold in my wings.
One last call - of freedom, of joy, of solitude in the sky - and I bank
towards home.
Singing a song of freedom.
