The Roadrunner

THE ROADRUNNER / Christopher Buckley for Glover Davis Hawks take long strides on the wind, and finches flit blissfully among hibiscus and orange, a mockingbird recites his ten lies and darts away— of course these birds tell us something of ourselves who sit envying their easy passing through the world, or who, daily now, run ourselves down the road to clear a glaze of drinks and dinner from the thick and rounded corners of our frames . . . So far, we haven't toned to the tight machines, are not precise, and whatever moves we once possessed on the fields or courts fade to legends, ancient wars, and we are worn men turning home, slow boats at sea . . . After the lifting and the miles only our spirits aspire; our body heat waves sunward, but we are still overgenerous in our appreciation of this life, and surely several incarnations from that ascetic plate of self-denial. With their renunciation of earthly fruits and splendors St. Raymond of Penafort sailed his cape over the waters, St. Francis and St. Martin de Porres rose routinely above the ground ... at best, our words find form, some discipline our hearts can take. And they have said we're men of "bearing," but really it's more "bear-like," and I couldn't help but feel so recently one day in the desert, as I watched a roadrunner crossing a wide, flat fairway with something considerable in his beak, feet padding for all he was worth—and, at the last instant, confronting the boundary fence, he flapped his mostly inadequate wings, cleared it without elegance, and was gone in the spare, lush shade. So who then's to say what part of grace desire finally is, the prayer of one foot winged or weary before the other? And may we be as admirable and accomplished by the end. 18 · The Missouri Review ...