On today's hike the girl limps along an
uncertain path, startling a deer in the brush.
It bounds away, and she glimpses only a
flash of white above a sinewy hind leg.
A falcon soars overhead, a small mouse
clutched in its talons.
So unlike the pack of turkey buzzards with
their fleshy red wattles stuck in a holding
pattern over a distant hilltop.
So unlike the familiar hummingbird in
her backyard, hovering next to the
Daphne bush, whose tiny wings flap so
fast they are almost imperceptible.
