Thunder roars with the sound of a 
thousand horses galloping across 
a prairie and rain hits my windowpanes 
like fluttering bird wings. Nightfall closes 
 
its curtain with a sense of finality. I feel 
a longing for tomorrow, for lifetimes of 
tomorrows, for a tomorrow that unites past 
and present. Wandering through my house 
 
unaware, at a loss, a haunting memory
hovers but cannot be grasped. A wild
bird eventually gets used to its cage. I think
and wait, filled with heart-fluttering fear. 
 
Calming myself with slow breaths, I whisper 
a chant, once and then again, that someday
I’ll be free to soar above the storms of life,
free of pain and fear.
                        

War, poverty, mass shootings haunt 
my dreams, make me know my world 
is not always a safe haven. Perhaps 
in all my lifetime it has never been.

I can barely read the news of war, politics,
pestilence, hatred that ravage and threaten 
our existence. When the sun comes up each 
day, new worlds seem possible. I breathe 

fresh morning sunshine, leave behind 
nightmares and fearful thoughts, embrace 
freedom that lives in every moment, in every
breath, and take up the rapture of my daily life.
                        

A red-shouldered hawk perched 
in my crape myrtle tree on a day 
in late May. A bit smaller and less 
commanding a bird than the cooper’s 
hawk that landed in that same place 
last year. 

 It seemed neither of them found a 
meal on my flagstone patio nor in my 
flower beds or herb garden. There are 
ordinarily plenty of small birds, 
squirrels and tender-looking chipmunks 
pecking at the soft earth or digging 

in crevices of flagstones laid in an 
irregular pattern like a jigsaw puzzle. 
This hawk was not patient, not patient 
at all. I marveled at him for the short 
while he graced my tree and envied 
his strong, soaring wings, 

his apparent intelligence and instincts, 
his beauty. Sometimes people are not 
too keen on raptors. So what, 
most people eat animals or fish. 
It may seem different 

without feathers or fur and wrapped 
in cellophane at some grocery store, 
but meat is meat. True Buddhists would 
mourn the deaths of worms and bugs 
who provide sustenance to many living 
creatures. At least they’d say a prayer,

a prayer of thanks for nourishment they’ve  
provided for others. For that matter, how do 
we know that seeds and grains, leaves, fruit 
and flowers are not sentient beings too. I’m 
tempted sometimes to not eat at all, or talk 
at all. I could become the silent observer.

I could sit in contemplation and not spew out 
unexamined thoughts and comments.  Let me 
be a raptor, free and with no perceived menace
to anyone, but I must eat to stay alive. We are 
all created this way. We consume, but let it be 
reasonable, not gluttonous, not power crazed.