Wild Turkey

On my way to a friend's birthday party, driving on the two-lane highway alongside San Pablo Reservoir, loving the still-lush greenery of the late spring coastal hills, a heart-stopping moment caused me to consider risks I've taken and the possible effects on those around me, loved ones and strangers alike. How connected is the ever stretching, reaching, breathing, flexing web of existence; how unexpected are our teachers, how fresh each day's lessons.


Wild Turkey

Have you ever seen
a wild turkey fly?
I watched one this morning,
great wings flapping,
neck straining forward
with the effort to propel
its thick body, like an
iridescent feathered
grenade, across the road,
rising from my left,
streaking like a sudden scream
on a diagonal trajectory
just past my astonished
windshield.

How many times,
wild bird that I am,
have I barely cleared
life’s oncoming traffic,
causing bystanders--
an anxious mother,
an irate father, a heretofore
indifferent sibling, a clueless cousin,
a chafing husband, a concerned friend,
or even a complete stranger,
to cry out—as I did--
“Oh God!”,

while I, single-minded,
sweating with the strain,
flap on and up,
oblivious of the
closeness of my call,
aiming like a weighted bullet
at my target,
dropping finally, breathless,
into the seeming safety of
the shady brush
on a warm
June green
hillside? 

      --Diane Elliot
        June 7, 2015