Between Meadow and Sea

I brave the path choked by whipping thorns, emerging on the hillside meadow’s storm-trampled grasses, long, parallel blades curving in humps. The improbable bench, a lonely silhouette at the hill’s peak, contemplates treetops raking the ocean’s far blue horizon, and, to my right, sheep and cattle stomp restlessly between the white fence and the open door of the red barn. I sit, and as my thoughts wander, winter's cardinals, ink spots on the icy sky, gather in flocks in the topmost branches of a distant elm. Breaking away from the flock, a dozen rise in a cloud and fly like a prayer above my head, drops of blood winging on the spirit of the wind.