Deep, Deepest December and I took one last walk in the woods before the fury and flurries of the hard new winter impose itself upon me. Cabin fever awaits just past the river and over the horizon, much closer to home than I want it to be.

In the woods I passed the ravaged remains of something. Tattered feathers revealing that it was something that once could fly. It flew but shall never fly again. Unless it was only the creature's hopes that crashed to the ground and somehow its dreams reached the heavens. Yes?... Inquiring further, I stirred the rotting pile with the tip of my boot. No answer.

Was it the pace of the day, basking in my own liberty, or the glorious fall of this Icarus-like creature that reminded me that freedom lost, is life lost. Or was it just another death reminding me to appreciate life.

Dare I contemplate the life and death of this once free spirit, or like Icarus, do I venture too close to what is forbidden that my wings become scorched, sending me into that apocalyptic collision with eternity? Maybe it'll just depress me. Hmm.  No, I brave the heights of my own imagination.

I mused at the ugly remains of that once noble creature, fallen, dragged there, torn to pieces. Thinking the average pedestrian would find it so difficult to look upon. Perhaps they fear to see something of their own mortality there. Admittedly, in my mind's eye I could not look upon my own self should I loose my cherished, metaphoric wings. Hopes crashed, dreams vanished only to reveal the ugliest parts of me. All that remains are the scattered remnants of feathers that the winds of free will once caressed. Hollow bones splintered, broken and revolting, never to soar with the heart again. These are the images of death that paints and pains my mind's eye. The iridescent, refractive, reflective color of death clashes with the happy-hued coverings we usually cloak our lives with. Only a few of us have learned to see things another way. Perhaps through eyes like the blood-stained eyes of the then-falling fallen-one. Beyond the stale hues and murky pools of red and green and blue. Immersed and initiated into an endless universe of new colors and different ways to perceive.

Gaze deepening, my fascination with mortality prevailed even as all of my senses were repulsed from the torn flesh and fettered freedom slipping slowly into oblivion beneath my feet. The raw truth of this hideous sight. The intrusive and insidious smell. A screaming contribution to an eerie silence. Contemplating the taboo taste of death and both the temptation and reluctance to touch that which life has abandoned with such finality.

While contemplating that black and swirled mass of "death " it occurred to me that I had only wandered into this secluded and now hallowed spot because of an impulsive effort to "taste life". Hard and black as iron, the irony. Borrowing a deep stench-filled breath of life, I realize at once, so many days lie ahead before the snows melt to reveal this forgotten path again. By then new discoveries will have become forgotten histories. I think winter will bring not flowers to smell but only cold, dark serendipity reserved only for those given the sense and sentience to fathom it. It lingers in the air here.

This repulsive, foulest of dead fowl offended each of my senses in turn, yet my thoughts pondered this creature's epoch journey from the clear sky into the dirt of the Earth. The living, live, life-eating Earth. This was... a most unappetizing encounter in the coldness of the physical world, yet I devoured each morsel of intrigue like it is the most delicious thing my thoughts have tasted since... since I didn't care to think of when.

Satiated, I resumed my own short journey. Pondering, wondering, wandering, traversing treacherous terrain in the dim forest. Anticipating my reunion with the light of an open sky under a forbidden sun. That Icarus -like creature, I will remember it, now like a guardian angel of sorts, if only for this passing day. Above me, beside me, beneath me. Wandering with me across the dark and damp life-eating Earth. Making me wonder. I wonder only how much more life I shall be able to eat before life eats me.