Winds of Chain

A distant setting sun casts long shadows through autumn trees of auburn, gold and fire, as they sway with every breath of wind, twisting and fluttering. Leaves are pried from branches like vegetables plucked from the earth. Eclipsed by the orange sun, the hawk flew nowhere; winds of savage strength holding the bird motionless in the sky, helpless. Geese waddling along the river bed look up at their powerless avian cousin, and it can do nothing but look back. The wind dies, and the hawk’s freedom is restored. Circling over the tops of sun forsaken trees like a desert vulture, it hunts a next meal. But the wind’s strength increases, and contains the hawk once again, suspended in mid air. A Sisyphus of the sky. In its open prison it resumes searching, and finds a rodent, a squirrel, a rabbit: a small black ball on the horizon. Finally the wind dies again. The starving hawk – unleashed, swift, fearless – drives its talons deep into the prey. Slumped brown ball in clutches, the hawk resumes flight. But the hawk flies nowhere, the winds are holding it back again, as if the winds were made of chain.