When You Can'T Sleep

When you can't sleep let your mind crawl into a body that has wings. A bird would be best, one lifted high on a slow turn, wheeling way above the earth, riding a wind being warmed by a rising sun. Use images remembered from past wildlife shows taken at height to run a landscape beneath your clawed feet. Focus on whatever moves below, a hurried scatter across rocks, an inquisitive head lifted above a tuft of grass, the terror driven dash of a hare. Survey the bounty gifted you and select one. Dip an outstretched wing and fold back to begin your dive. All will become a rush, a blur yielding to a finely focussed shape looming in the center of your sight. Taken on the run, a hare becomes your kill. Impaled on talons you feel its life kick and struggle on the end of your foot. Taste its blood, rest, then try and get some sleep. There will be time tomorrow night when sleepless hours stretch out like a wide, flat plain and you can slip into another body and become prey hiding from wings circling overhead.