The day was warm, the sun casting its golden hue upon the slowly rolling water, turning it from blue to gold to blue again, as I sat on the warm sand and watched the birds trace their airy patterns in the sky.

The wind's gentle hum through the trees soothed me, and I found the antics of the birds held my full attention.

Suddenly I realized that one bird stood apart from the others. It's flight so sweet that my heart clenched within my breast to see it in its finest form. It flew with a passion unknown to me, soaring and swooping with an abandon I did not understand.

I found myself holding my breath as I sat in wonder at the bravery of such a small creature.

The sky was turning darker, the breeze becoming cooler...the sand no longer the warm resting place that it had been. Still, shivering, I could not look away from the arial show before me. My mind was racing, my heart now pounding, a lump in my throat.

What would make this creature take such chances with it's life? It seemed to me that this bird must be desperate to act in such a frantic manner.

The sky was almost black, and the wind was a fierce blowing - snatching at my clothes and trying to pull me away from this beauteous evil I now witnessed, throwing my hair into my eyes to keep me from seeing the truth bound up in the flight of the bird.

And then the sun sank behind the trees... and in it's last rays that seeped into the sky I saw the plummeting shape of a poor desperate bird, finally fallen to it's rest.

by Monique Julien