Note: Today I am pleased to publish an elegy called The Prize Falcon of Ali Rahman VII Eyes His Prey.

This elegy is a prelude to my forthcoming piece On Coming Through II: A Personal Reflection at Age 52.

I am writing this reflection because I will very soon be moving back to Los Angeles, in the United States, the country in which I was born. I have lived in Japan for almost thirty years, and it is time to return home.

What I feel most strongly about leaving Japan is relief. Beyond that, I feel a measured confidence that I am ready for this next chapter of my life, along with a sense of anticipation about the friends I will see, the new people I will meet, the music I will play, and the possibilities that await me.

There is something about the wind, about the approach of a storm, and about our instincts which that tell us when it is time to move. We do not always know what lies ahead. Sometimes we simply know that something must change. What comes next is a mystery.

Epigraphs:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer

W.B. Yeats

You are like a hurricane
There’s calm in your eyes

Neil Young

Ali Rahman VII releases his prize falcon into the air

The falcon swoops to the left and to the right
as he ascends

The falcon is hungry and looks for food
High in the air he looks down

He spies a mouse

The falcon is well trained and knows what to do

A hurricane is approaching
This is something new

The falcon adjusts his wings and prepares to dive

The mouse is oblivious to her doom

The falcon circles slowly and begins his dive
The mouse will be lucky to be alive

The mouse, in her way, senses danger is near
This little mouse experiences something like fear

She scurries toward her burrow

Deep down under the ground

The falcon pauses in midair and looks around

The mouse prepares to slide into her hole

The falcon dives

Dedication: For the gyre. You scare me.