WIAO P-22; ITD-10, Dancing with Hawks

This is what we have established. I was walking in the dunes. I was thinking about that thing called love. I was on the lookout for some signs. The Navajo are right and a hawk flies by.

You see, the hawk is not the sign itself, except in the way an exit sign on an interstate is a sign itself. I was indeed in some in-between state and the hawk was like that exit sign pointing towards some destination. A rendezvous if you will.

Which reminds me. Have you ever danced with hawks? I swear I have. Maybe a year earlier to the date and not in the dunes themselves, but on the shoreline at the edge of those self-same dunes. That’s where the bay begins to be the ocean, and I was headed for the turn where the bay is still the river.

Two hawks came floating over. No more than fifteen above my head. And as I walked the curve of shoreline, they stayed with me. At the edge of the dunes. I know they were looking for some creature comfort food, but still they stayed with me, criss-crossing their flight paths and rising and falling in the currents of the wind, always keeping their forward progress to my own.

Until I stopped. A bit self-conscious, I looked around, and seeing no one I raised my arms and looked skywards to their presence. And for I swear five minutes at the least and maybe more like ten I flew with two quite graceful sharp-shinned hawks.

Remembering all the time two simple things. Our wings are not our arms; we fly by flexing legs within the space we call the earth. Or then again, we simply dream. And at that time, I was doing both.