Mom stood. Up from her recliner.  During a commercial break.  “Are you going to the bathroom?” Dad asked with a touch of accusing panic, for the urge had struck, and he gets so little notice, and every second counts on the 12-foot journey. “Yes,” she spat.  “Don’t worry, Dad,” I assured him, “she’ll be out by the time you’re up.”  Dad sat, stymied.  Sunk in his recliner.  During the commercial break.  He still had not stood when Mom came wandering into the kitchen, her business done, to check on my cooking.  The Jeopardy buzzers buzzed.  “Are you finished, Lucille?” Dad barked after the commercial break.  “Yes,” she called.  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he lobbed, struggling and shaking to stand and stoop over the walker, his time perilously past.  “I’M FINISHED!” she hissed.  “Didn’t you hear the flush?”  A streak of white flashed in my periphery and something bounced hard against the kitchen window, two feet from me.  I knew, of course, what it was, sort of, a bird, but my heart pounded anyway.  We hustled outside to find the bird sitting in the dirt, a gray falcon or hawk of some kind, sitting awkwardly, wings askew, head rocked back on its neck.  Its red eyes glared fiercely at us, and it panted rapidly with parted beak.  Well, that’s the end of this bird.  Its neck is broke.  Such a startling beautiful creature.  I was powerless to make a difference for the hawk, and let it be, returning sadly to my cooking.  The children and grandchildren remained, marveling and sad.  Then Lila screamed, and Brian poked his head through the door to tell me the bird had stood up and pushed off in flight.  Well, I’m sure glad to be wrong.  Audubon informed me the bird was a Northern Goshawk.  The kitchen window had vinyl grids that I thought would have averted the bird.  But from its vantage point outside, I could see the window was filled with a glare reflecting the mountains and trees and sky behind.  And the goshawk had been flying like a line-drive baseball after a sparrow.  Days and weeks later, the goshawk’s scarlet boring ferocity still flashed in memory.  The bird had dared me to underestimate her, and had defied the neck-breaking brick and glass of humanity, and had flown off above the house and trees and everything into its freedom sky.  The red-headed house finch was not so fortunate.  She landed on the arborvitae, on the bird netting wrapped around, and became irretrievably enmeshed, dying before I knew, before I could scoop her out and set her free.

(Photo from Flickr.com and used pursuant to the fair use doctrine.)