Une Étude en Plumes

(Long-billed Curlew)

I simply had to try. Feather by feather, this rendering grew.

Brush in hand, I escaped some of the shock of promised tariffs that might challenge global economic stability—just this week’s clamor against the noisome background of threats to the environment, health, education, even the rule of law.

The once beckoning light at the top of the hill seems barely a glimmer. Perhaps there’s meaning in the Curlew’s plaintive, urgent cry.