Condor Dream

By water’s edge I realize the great bird’s presence.

First, a momentary shadow dancing across the shoreline. Next, leaping over waves, and then back
above the trees.

Instinctively flinching,
I am small prey
(caught)
in the open, before tilting my head to heaven.

He dances!
Gliding on some airborne path of heat
and wind,
purest white, on black, on blue;

ancient god, on earth, in Love -

he dances alone; an aerial soul in single purpose:
to carry Life on wings outstretched.

Ancient silent hymns are rising.

All that is ‘my world’ evaporates in the presence of this
dark mystic who has crossed eons of time and dignified the ancestors
by righteously (and fiercely) ascending over and over

to balance on the edge of timelessness.

To him,
there is no shadow against the terra firma,
there is no me,
nor is there an earth-bound longing for something lost from Grace,

there is only this flight.
There is only a perfect continuum of the dance.

No fooling, I had the blessing of an opportunity to photograph

this amazing fellow in the wild (though it was on a ranch) from about 

18 feet away in April of 2008.I was learning to use my (then) new, 

bigger bolder Nikon and wasn't sure exactly what I'd end up with.

This is one of many incredible shots given to me by California

Big Sur Condor - Tag #68 - the first condor born out of captivity since 

they became a protected, yet endangered species. The poem came later.