I had a dream last night that I was in the woods. It was early morning and the sun hadn’t really risen yet, but everything was bright from the light peeking over the treetops and the fog rolling through the fields.
I was there, standing with the bottom of my jeans damp from the dew and I saw something in front of me, near the ground. I knelt down and it was a small, very ugly baby bird of some kind. It had fuzzy black down covering its body and was roughly the size of my palm. It’s beak was long and tilted downwards and also dark in color, like it was melted, but in my mind I knew that baby birds of this breed just looked like that. It was all alone, and I didn’t see its parents, or a nest.
Then, I scooped it up into my hands and held it near my chest to warm it up. I built a small nest for us out of prairie grass and situated it all in a cardboard box, then crawled inside, where we fell asleep.
When I awoke, the baby bird was gone and in its place was a golden eagle, staring at me with it’s large yellow eyes. Like it had been waiting for me to wake up. I realized that only my head and shoulders fit inside our makeshift nest. I wanted to see if the eagle would let me pet him, so I reached over, gingerly stretching my fingers towards his wing. He bit my finger, but it wasn’t hard, or like he was angry, more like he was scolding me for sleeping in so late. I laughed and he nipped it again, then let me stroke his feathers.
The sun was up now, so we left the cardboard box and I stood up, with my arm outstretched to support his weight. With a great heave, I pushed him up and he raised his wings and took off, his shadow passing over me while the sun silhouetted his feathers and they glinted reds and greens and yellows and oranges.
