Pushing the Autumn scents up the mountain slope

The rising warmth was fading now
 

Daydown near and winter soon to follow.
 
 

            Riding the rising air

     Not hunting, just watching
 
     Fourteen times he had done this
 
 

Fourteen times he and she had nested here
 
The sky and the land whispered to him

That already they should be gone.
 
 

"Ride the ridges south."

    Still circling, he watched her, his only mate,
        floating in her own motionless circle, a mile away.

 
 

When the air was still chilled,
When it was time to dance the airborne mating dance:
 
Flashing at each other,
    twisting,
    turning,
    falling,
    talking to each other
as they tumbled.

"Fourteen times," he thought
    As his circle turned him away from her.

"Fourteen times," he thought
    As his circle brought him back again.

But now her sky was empty,
    "Hunting still," he laughed to himself.

He watched,
    Moved to her portion of their sky
    Called

He lingered,
    looking,
    calling,
        for weeks that stretched
            then
                snow dusted his mountain
            and
                he turned south

When it would have been the fifteenth time,

    He waited above their mountain
        Circling, alone.