Feathers in the Wind

Eye drawn to gray weathered splintering wood on the railroad trestle,
as I approach I see wing feathers fluttering in the wind –
a red tailed hawk struck by a train.
I am compelled to apologize for our blunt mechanized intrusion on the freedom of the air. And to utter gratitude for magnificence, though cut short.
What does this oracle bid on the day I apply for Social Security and Medicare?
Enjoy your ability to fly while you can?
Be careful of what is coming your way?
Do you really think society still wants you?
There is beauty even in death?
I regret not plucking a feather to preserve this gift – and now must settle for words, again.

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Blaise Kielar received Honorable Mention in the 2022 Alex Albright Creative Nonfiction Prize for an excerpt from his memoir in progress, "Be Heard: The Quiet Kid Who Started the World’s Loudest Violin Shop." He opened Chapel Hill’s first violin shop in 1978 and retired from a music retail career by transitioning Electric Violin Shop into the first worker-owned co-op music store in the United States. He plays jazz violin and clarinet in several bands and leads the Bulltown Strutters, Durham’s community New Orleans brass band.