There are a great many outdoor places to invigorate a person by offering an opportunity to exercise in the beautiful setting that is Sonoma Valley and the surrounding Bay Area. This is a record of some of my excursions.

Monday, April 9, 2012

For the Birds

Quiet walk in the woods
On a cloudy winter day
Ominous rain clouds
Promising impending precipitation
Keeping away human crowds
So that I can enjoy my walk
In relative peace
Trekking up the rust trail
Shrouded in black oaks
Branches dripping green Spanish moss
Cloaking black eyed brown headed juncos
Hopping down the to the ground
In search of a meal.

Rain spattering against remaining
Bay leaves clinging to trees
Covering me sporadically as I continue to walk
Around the bend tree gives way to scrubs
Red-limbed manzanita
Blooming with bells
Blossoming white against
The dark green leaves.

I sit quietly on the stone bench
Hard and cold and comforting
Quiet time alone on the hill
Watching in the light rain
A red-shouldered hawk streak across the sky
Coming to rest on a bough across the meadow
Copper chest puffed out
Beneath hooked yellow beak
Piercing black eyes searching
Looks down at approaching noise
Of two hens clucking their way up the hill
Disturbing our reverie
No longer focusing on the hawk and the view
Persistently pulled away from
Meditative state
Where I search for something
For there is not a someone
Who has yet brought me the calm and quiet
I can always find
On a rainy day hike alone.

Thick bread crumb filled females
Rounding the corner
Miss the hawk as they talk
About hair styles and other feminine wiles
Meant to disguise their plainness
Behind a veneer of attractiveness
While the hawk
Now on the ground
Blends into gray and brown thistles
Behind rows of black and white feathers
Scratching the surface dirt
In search of substance
And sustenance that lies beneath.

I take too much time
Watching the birds
To do more than pause at the summit
To look out over the small town
Clouded in falling rain
Surrounded by greening golden hills
I have chores at home
Forcing me to leave
The security of solitude.

I linger for a few moments
Before leaving the trail for the empty parking lot
Holding on to whatever it is I've found
And have to forget when I walk
Back to town down the road.