#7 : The Fine Art of Collecting Feathers

This is more or less an excerpt from the longer piece I have written, that will most likely be turned into my personal essay. So as you read keep in mind I yoinked it mid-draft and put two paragraphs up here.

It was a hawk feather. Creamy light, light sandy brown with bands and spots of black. I didn't have any hawk feathers and could appreciate how rare a find this was. It was a gift from an elusive predator. I loved the dry little noises my nails made as they ran over the tightly packed barbs. The vane curled under a small finger the downy afterfeather tickled my chin -- I didn't believe feathers tickled you, but I believed the feather wouldn't be clean until it was back at home, tucked into the Wilhelmina Peppermint tin along with crow, blue jay, and starling plumage I had collected over the years.

Birds drop their feathers everywhere. In the Amazon they are bright greens and brilliant reds, and the people who live there make headdresses and adornments from them. In pet stores they are swept into the garbage, perhaps are collected by an eccentric employee. In parks the feathers go unnoticed and are snatched by the wing and blown into lakes and ponds. In the forests and the jungles and everywhere else birds drop their feathers, and a piece of the sky falls so that humans may be able to hold it and envy the one freedom that is not theirs.


Really don't like how that last part is worded, so it's being scrapped.

Post Script: This is what a Wilhelmina Peppermint tin is. The peppermints are made in the likeness of Queen Wilhelmina of Holland.