Why Reality Depends on Hawks
And why the Ocean is important
OK — I’ve decided that reality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I don’t know why, but, somehow, it’s lost its charming bite.
Perhaps something happened. It checked out and went sleepy bye, forgetting to set the most rudimentary alarm.
A jet airplane flew by my window earlier this morning. I could hear it throttling down for a landing, but when I looked out, a bluejay flapped by, squawking at me, instead. The airplane had gone. Perhaps the passengers just wanted their privacy.
I’m sure that ringing bluejay was squawking at me, or, perhaps, at the two black winged hawks cruising in stillness, circling on a thermal high above us both, searching for mice.
I wish I had eyesight like that, or at least a brain wired for wings, feeling the air whip past me, a friend to tall beings who look up to question the floating cloud sky.
What has the air done for you lately? It supports all of us, even if we don’t realize it: Air, and rivers, too, water flowing downstream to the Ocean…. But where does the Ocean go?
It evaporates into the Air.
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Now that I’ve got your attention, I’d like to discuss the facticity of lawnmowers. It’s Sunday afternoon, and they’re busy. Again.
I don’t hold it against them. Everyone needs a job, needs a reason to get up in the morning…. I don’t, though. The Universe has given me coffee, sugar, and oat milk. Isn’t that enough?
Isn’t that enough for you, too? That, and a girlfriend who loves you, of course.
Why are you so unhappy? Maybe the lawnmower from that weird neighbor next door got too close, invaded your space, spread ugly exhaust fumes and the cries from murdered grass blades up to your bedroom window, and even farther, to the realm of hawks and jet planes, beyond the mountains of your mind, higher and higher, until those two hawks, still tilting on thermals, noticed you (noticed me) flying,
Too.
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© “John” Lesly Levin 2021
