This magnificent bald eagle was perched motionless high up in a tree beside the Bridge River, focused intently on catching a glimpse of silver scales flashing in the fast-moving water – breakfast for his growing family, and a slow, grizzly death for the unsuspecting salmon. I watched him for a moment or two, his head darting back and forth, his yellow eyes skimming the pearl gray water, his pinions disheveling in the biting wind. He ignored me, and as I coaxed my Canon to come to life in the chill of the early morning, I snapped him as he left his perch, diving at 105 miles per hour, but he disappeared in to the canyon before I could get his prey on film. Man! I hate that! Anyway, he put me in mind of a song I wrote not so long ago, and used (in part) as the opening to Chapter Twenty-one in book #4 – The Gathering Dark – in the Time & Unforeseen Occurrence seven-novel series.
Most of you probably know by now that all of the chapters in all of the books are preceded by a poem, prose, or a song to set the mood for each chapter. If I’d had this fellow then, I think I might have included him….
‘Black Roses
Last night I dreamed of black roses
With blood dripping red from their thorns
And the sky was a strange kind of crimson
That never did change with the dawn
And I stood there and stared at an eagle
Its yellow eyes stared back at me
It was caught up in flight and soon gone from my sight
And I wished that eagle were me
Last night I dreamed I was flying
And my wings took me out into space
As the stars drifted by me I wondered
Why no breath of wind kissed my face
It was dark, it was cold there and empty
Each glimmer of light far away
And part of me wanted to run from that place
Another part wanted to stay
Last night I dreamed I was aching
For somebody warm in my bed
Just someone to hold me, but nobody told me
That I’d wake up lonely instead
And I cried for the sand and the sound of the sea
For the softly whispering foam
And I do confess it’s a mystery to me
Why I can’t seem to find my way home’
(Above) Scanning the waters.
Ah… breakfast!
I love flight, I always have, and I’ve flown in most kinds of planes, I suppose, from hot-air balloons, to gliders, to MiGs, to all sorts of commercial planes. The only one I haven’t been up in, and would still love to experience, is a Dassault Falcon 7X. Ah, but I managed to live vicariously… a little, in enjoying Tom’s and Jenny’s journeys in theirs.
Despite the sense of loss and longing at the conclusion of Black Roses, it seems to me that we’re all searching in one way or another, and however far our journeys may take us, we’re just trying to find our way home….
Love, peace, and All Good Things – Jesse.
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Read the first five chapters of the seven-novel Time & Unforeseen Occurrence series here –
