Lunch

By Maryanna Gabriel

These days when I finish the back lawn in the garden it is time to do the lawn out front. I know I walked 800 kilometers across Northern Spain but sometimes it seems an incredible act of escape to leave the property and just plain saunter. Today I was successful and walking by the ocean I came across a stand that sold asparagus.  My stomach growled. Racing home with my purchase I steamed the asparagus and added a crumbled white English cheese, some balsamic reduction, lemon butter and freshly grated pepper and parking myself outside in the sunshine, I set to this spring delicacy. My attention was drawn to a flock of noisy robins overhead. About twenty were gathered in the tree above and were squawking. I watched as a huge bird moved among them. It was an enormous raven. In it's mouth dangled feathers and flesh and so it seemed that a fledgling was for lunch. I grieved for the baby robin and the robins chasing it hoping to retrieve and revive the helpless morsel. Needless to say it wasn't going to happen. Hard to accept.