From her high evening perch, the beacon’s lamp is small, a warm orb that highlights white caps rolling endlessly ashore.

Years of living teach high perspective.  The sun will rise in soft pinks to rest in session over blue waters and crystal sand before bowing to the western horizon and finally tucking behind the fresh waters.  The sun will signal in soft corals and blues while whispering, “Until tomorrow,” when it will again appear over the eastern sea.

It’s funny, Crow thinks, how small a bird is in this world.  She rests with the thought.  And where each is hatched a matter only of chance, not of intrinsic worth.

At times she frets in restless sleep over tufted chicks with no choice but to lodge on dangerous cliffs and those lost in a moment to the envy of larger birds.  A mother’s hopes can be dashed or plucked away, never to return.

The high crow knows that all creatures are her family.  Each wants only an equal chance to live and love and squawk at the amazing and unforgettable, the ordinary and mundane.  She knows to leave a bit of food for less-lucky others passing through, to arise each morn in gratitude for what she has, to share freely as she can. Her treasures – the colored buttons, round-edged pebbles, and twigs from the shore that now line her modest nest – they belong to something greater.

In recent days she wakes early to watch the sun’s ascent.  She considers the tides and seasons that roll in and out in predictable meter.  Looking past the horizon, she ponders the dusk when the sun will lower behind the veil, beyond clouds and all things seen.  From here the whole of life will seem as distant as the glowing beacon, yet still near, and she and others before will glide with ease on lighter currents.

© Mitzi Viola, 9/17/19