The White Feather

The White Feather

If the afternoon had not been so hot, with a sun so relentless, then perhaps I would not have chosen the hat with the widest brim.   I might even have gone hatless, preferring instead to let the wind blow my hair as I took in the expansive green vistas of an early August day.  Maybe I would have been looking up. 

Up through the trees to the blue sky beyond.

 Up where the mockingbirds chase the red-shouldered hawks away from their nests.

 Up where the  clouds draw grand pictures at the gates of  heaven.   

I would have been studying those pictures perhaps, trying to decide what they were -

 A castle? A dragon?  

Spinning wheel?  

Hare?

But I wore the wide-brimmed hat to hide from the sun and my view winnowed down to the earth at my feet.  
Focused, sharpened, my eyes wrapped around the smaller things:

 the acorns, the pebbles - blue violets, green moss.  

And then, there it was,

 pinned to the ground by a shaft of sunlight falling hard through the trees,

 white as bone, light as the air. 

A feather.

I bent to pick it up.

     

Stronger than it looked at first sight, each tiny white strand clasped together along the quill, like hands.
 So sadly grounded, still ready for flight.  

Too small for a wren, a robin, or thrush.

Had it dropped from the wing of a gull, or an owl?

Or perhaps from my guardian angel, in an effort to prove that she’s there.

Now it sits in a vase on my desk.

I run my fingers down the ruffled edge at least once a day.

Not to remind myself of flight that has ended, 

but flight that has yet to be.