Blipper among snow geese

While I cooked breakfast, Sue read aloud to me a marvelous Mary Oliver poem (excerpt below). I worked on my speech for Tuesday while Sue did her homework for a class she's taking on "Interrogating Whiteness,"  and then we rewarded ourselves with an escape from politics, city life, family, and responsibility to go walking on Sauvie Island during a rare sun-break. As we passed a massive flock of snow geese, a bald eagle swooped down among them and terrified them into flight. See her blip for the murmuration-like shape they created. Also a couple of extras from me, the second one including the eagle as viewed from my 35mm lens. 

From Mary Oliver's poem, "Goldenrod"

Are not the difficult labors of our lives
     full of dark hours?
          And what has consciousness come to anyway, so far,

that is better than these light-filled bodies?