I saw the Kestrel yesterday and today. Many years ago, while having a difficult conversation with a beloved family member, I watched this bird drag a nest of wasps to the top of a nearby phone pole, and begin consuming either them, the larvae or both.

I cannot be certain, but I had the sense that it was enjoying a delicacy.

At first, I just saw it flinching and manipulating something beneath its claw. It took me a moment to understand that it was being being stung in the face by wasps from a nest it had intentionally harvested. But the bird just boldly continued pecking at the nest and appearing entirely pleased.

The correlation between what the bird’s activities and our conversation to was not lost on me. It was a moment when nature spoke directly to me in a language older than words, and more easily apprehended. And these experiences each left their shape in my heart.

There were many years where I never saw the Kestral. And more than a few where I barely saw the moon. But when I do, they have, for me, a spiritual significance… or rather, one that bridges the worlds of the divine and the mortal…

This afternoon I had a dream. By which I mean something language should keep its hands off of, in general. For dreams have spaces of meaning and relationship that language only approaches in a true poet’s finest moments.

Yet in the dream, there was a huge white moon, dayshining among some thin clouds. At its lower left, seven stars were arrayed in a diagonal line. High at the left. And I wanted to take a photograph of it… with a camera I had…

The new moon is tonight/tomorrow.