Wish Upon a Wing

Today, while out buying fish in Berkeley, I was limping back to my truck (back & leg issues) when in front of me appeared a crow or raven also limping.

Was he making fun of me?  Showing sympathy?  Just a fellow creature with a hurt of his/her own?

Before I could ask, the black bird flew away.

I wish I had wings like that.

David Wagoner: "Lost"

LOST

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.


--David Wagoner,
from Traveling Light: Collected and New Poems.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.

Thank you, ST, for sharing this poem with me.

Duck, Duck, Goose . . . .

On the way to morning coffee.

A year ago, I was kayaking in the Bay off Berkeley, but this is quite fine too.

Thanksgiving, 2010.