land of the sky so blue

You’re in the kitchen when the dogs start barking at the front door. You know no one is here, or the cameras in the front of the property, the driveway or the front door would have gone off. But you trust your dogs so you go look out the window from the guest bedroom. You see nothing, but you get the feeling something just happened. Then you spot it in a far away branch of that interior oak PG&E is going to fell because it’s too close to the power line. A hawk.

You don’t know when or how you got so good at spotting hawks from hundreds of feet away.

Easy momma, you can close your eyes,

it’s a good thing now and the sun’s gonna rise real soon

It’s not very close and he’s facing the other way and he seems wet and ruffled from days of rain so you can’t really tell what kind of hawk it is. He must have flown low, scaring all the birds and your dogs. You get your binoculars and you case the hawk, which by now you have decided is a Cooper’s Hawk. You don’t have much to go by but size, side-profile and the silhouette of a longish tail. The tail is what you’re going on. That longer tail of accipiter hawks vs Buteo hawks. But you still can’t be sure so you want to see it in flight. Your dog wants your attention about something and you look down to tell him to hold on a sec. When you look up, the hawk is gone. That’s all it took. One second of distraction to miss it all. You look at the time and you’ve spent almost an hour still and silent watching the hawk with hopes of being able to identify it.

You don’t know when or how it became so easy to sit still for so long looking at a bird perched on a dead oak branch.

Easy does it, we can compromise

in land of the sky so blue

You and the dogs don’t want to waste the one beautiful clear day you have so you go outside to inspect the property for fallen trees, clogged gutters to the French drain and other possible mishaps. Everyone is feeling bad for you because you’re spending the holidays alone, but you don’t feel one bit bad or lonely. But how do you convince others that what they fear the most, is what you most enjoy. Solitude.

You don’t know when it became more than enough with the land and its birds and your pets.

In my mind she’s running circles round a life she used to call her very own

Easy does it, we can just slow down in the land of the sky so blue

Land of the sky so blue

So blue

~Lyrics from “Easy Does It” by Briscoe