Feathers from the Sky, and Lions that Roar

I was glancing out the front window a moment ago when I saw a tiny cloud of pale objects come floating to earth in our driveway. A few of them were spinning as they fell and I thought they were some kind of seed pods and went out to look. They weren’t seeds. They were feathers, mostly soft, downy underfeathers. I counted a few dozen scattered in a thin mosaic over the gravels.

Naturally I looked up. But saw nothing. Where did they come from? My guess is that a hawk hit a dove in midair and the feathers were torn free. I have no idea if the dove survived. The fact that there were a lot of feathers and that many were underfeathers suggests maybe not.

It was odd that I looked out at just the right moment to see the feathers settle. It makes you wonder how many dramas like this happen every day and no one observes. It’s sheer luck if we even observe the aftermath, like those feathers raining down.

It occurred to me that reading a novel is a bit like this experience. What a reader sees on the page is the aftermath of events played out in the writer’s head. The drama in the book isn’t real. The drama that took place in the writer’s mind as he or she constructed the story is the reality.

In other news, Church Lady picked me and several others for “A Roar of Powerful Words” award from The Shameless Lions Writing Circle. How cool! Thank you, Church Lady! “Let’s Discuss.”