Rapture

The kestrel played with the wind. It rose hundreds of feet and swooped down hundreds, but during the half hour that I watched it not once did it flap its wings. Did it feel proud about its adroitness? Did it have Jonathan Livingstone's pretensions? Did it feel special about being able to survey the rain forests from so high above? Well, even without extending human traits to it, watching it ride the drafts, and hearing it's shrieks scattered in the wind, was trance-inducing. I remembered that scene from American Beauty in which the drug-peddling kid shoots the video of a feather dancing in the wind. I remembered the words too 'Sometimes there is so much beauty in the world that I feel I can't take it anymore'.