My favorite quote, written by W.O. Mitchell: “Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I. But when the trees bow down their heads, the wind is passing by.”
Every morning, when Paula and I lived on the farm, we would be given breath. We sat at our breakfast table and looked out through the sliding glass door to a most magnificent landscape. The cedar trees were gracious. They must have been nearly my age today – even then. Two of them sat side by side in some random act of kindness. These cedars hosted a variety of birds and species of critters that one could not imagine nor capture merely by eye. The morning gross-beaks were the most frequent flyers in these trees. They would arrive en masse in the winter – disappear into the cedar trees and then emerge as though in an ambush – for the sunflowers seeds Paula insisted I put out for our guests each morning.
One morning we were watching our outdoor program, when a hawk flew right into the window. God he was magnificent! He hit the window with such a powerful force that Paula and I thought for sure he was dead. Paula was in a dither. “Bill, what are you going to do?”. Funny how these types of wild-life incidents became an automatic personal responsibility.
“Nothing.”, I replied. “What can I do?”
“Save him”. Paula insisted.
Well, I don’t know anyone who has given mouth to mouth to an hawk before but I think Paula would have been grateful if that “hawk-man” exchange could have been me.
Needless to say, I didn’t give the hawk beak-to-mouth, but I did go outside to check on the thing. It was still breathing – the talons were HUGE. I knew that whenever those things must have hooked a mouse there was nothing that that wee mousie could have done but give a squeal.
I came inside and Paula immediately said, “Is it okay?”
“I think it just stunned itself, Paula.” I replied. It will be okay.
My words seem to ease her tension for a while. “Besides, there is really nothing we can do. It’s had a wonderful life here on the farm – it was free to soar in the air and take its pick of fine food – it was free to nest in the back 40 and to have a family. What a life.” Oh, how I always wished I could soar like that hawk.
But, it was not this hawk’s time to go. Almost in an instant, the bird “snapped to it”. There was the initial wobble, and then – it was gone. I don’t know if it was the wind – but the cedars shuddered – I think the hawk took full advantage of those cedar trees for some necessary R and R.
What a spectacular view Paula and I had. We never did see the hawk again – but our morning breakfast at that table by the window were never the same after our magnificent visitor had graced us with a view from our own chairs.
Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I. But when the cedars bow down their heads, the wind is passing by.
Cheers
High Flight 