Streams & Consciousness

A red tailed hawk screeched from high above the red brick smokestack that stands like a silent sentinel protecting my city's past. He swung out upon the smokey tufts of air, and sung out to the blue blue sky that I couldn't dare to see.

His scarlet plumes were not so far away as my mind, but he was far enough that I could not discover his face. I lurched from that calm moment of hope and soaring, to the squalor of confusion.

Was this good? Was this bad?

I do not know. I do not know if I should have thought about it quite so much.

As I drove my sister and myself to the train station, she was talking, but I wasn't really listening. Her voice was soft and her left hand was absently drifting down her once-blonde locks. I continued to think about that towering dream of that screeching bird.

I know. That is rude.

I dropped her at the station to buy her ticket. I parked the jeep. I heard, "1 minute til departure."

I ran.

As I stepped through the dirty iron door of the worn out train, it pulled away tired with me, and I don't know if my sister made it, though, perhaps somewhere deep inside I do care.

All the way in to Boston, steady through Billerica, through Woburn, through Winchester, through Medford, I listened to Dan Bern's voice and his fingers on 6-strings pluck out the serene rage of accoustic punk. I listened to Joni Mitchell's voice twist her melancholy around the 88 keys on her piano. I remembered the hawk.

I found solace in that disparity. It seemed so soothing as those voices echoed in my heart together.

As the brakes screech in bustle of North Station, the hawk is far away circling his prey. Red tail dripping from the sky, around the place where a squirrel's blood will pool. Unconcerned with his place in the universe.

There is only the sky. The moment. Food.

Am I unique? I walk out of the station. I look up at the same sky. The same blue. Somewhere, someone else has these same thoughts, these same dreams, these same experiences.

The hawk forgets his meal.

I am sad and empty.

I laugh, I am Man.

I wish I were a bird.

Screeching.

Flying up so far people could not find me.

The hawk dives into the river,snatches a new moment, a new meal, a new dream. He flies back to his aerie.

I wish I were a bird. The king of the world, and all the creatures in it. My eyes owning the miles around. My gaze imperious and stoic. My silence. My empire.

My life is soaring. My flight above the river dissects the valley and the wood.

I dive endlessly, then crash up into the sky.

I see the hawk. I am the hawk.

People ask, "Why do you cry so loudly in the clouds?"

I will answer them.

I will answer them with silence and sharp eyes.

I will gnaw their livers.

I will gnaw their brains.

I will scream endlessly and then do it all again.

Sometimes the sky will be so utter gray and endless. But today it is sapphire blue. Sometimes it'll be my reflection. Whether it is that or something different, like a shattered splash of rainbow from north to south, I will reflect upon the day behind. I will peer ahead to tomorrow.

And you. You'll be there too. You will be there too.

You will be there. We will screech my memories and your dreams. People will wonder, what the fuck's with them.

I will not tell them.

I will not say a word.

I will soar and scream and screech and pray. I will hope you join me.

Please please join me ...

... please join me in my aerie.

And our friendship will grow. And the friendship we know will die. It'll fade into the darkness and we'll be glad it's left behind. Because the light, our light, high above this city and these clouds will be perfect and true.

I will be an eagle. I will soar above the river far below.

You will be my mistress, my lover, my rain. My friend.

Is it even possible that anyone could be so brave?