The twin oar blades swooped low over the dark water and slid noiselessly through the barrier between sea and sky and disappeared beneath. Endlessly - swoop, dive, swoop, dive, round and round - my eyes caught glimpses of blunt wooden birds of prey, so eventually I assumed they were there. How strange, I thought, that I should see only the hawk but not the mouse: continuously the attack, but never the kill.
My arms, somehow strong beneath their age spots, barely seemed to flex as I pull the boat across the endless sea. I know now that I rowed, not for the purpose of getting to any certain place, but for the prolongation of this planet's dear lady, Life; I am far from anywhere, and that's the way I wished it could continue to be. For as I drove the oar-eagles on through the night, I awoke far too soon from my drowsy slumber in a bed far from the ocean. I plunked myself with a start, like the clicking of a cog, at my desk and began to type. Up, down, up again, I am more mechanical than my Underwood.
I don't feel so strong anymore. And I miss the falcons by side, their hidden prey beneath. But I'll write about them instead.
Inspired by the life and obsession of the late Mr. Robert Shields. Begun September 2007.
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