At The Dragon's Egg in Ledyard, Connecticut:

Got ready a lunch of that European raw dense moist all-grain bread, Swiss cheese sliced very thin, and expensive smoked salmon from McQuade's supermarket, so good it makes me want to lick the ass of the fish it came off of and the man who smoked it. Butternut squash puree also from McQuade's, a beautiful deep orange glow in bowl in sunlight. Set all down on mat in front of glass sliding door in just-before-noon-sunshine to eat like the Carthusians, looking out at the world - at the field with its sculpture and the farmhouse and the barn and the row of bare-limbed trees, the stone wall and the road beyond. I sat down thinking a grace would be appropriate if I could ever have the patience, and glanced up to see shape of a huge turkey just emerging from the big pine tree to the side of the barn - a lone male turkey, enormous, prehistoric, black. It hesitated, looked all ways, walked out. I immobilized in hunt-mode - turkeys can see movement very well, even through glass doors. It nibbled dead winter grass exposed by receding snow and moved down the driveway toward the road. I would witness it cross the road safely or see it hit by car careening around the corner. Thought through my options - should I slide open the door to scare it faster across road? No, always a bad idea to intervene. Also Crazy Jane in me: don't trust relationship with time.

Then looked over: while I was watching and hunting, I was being watched and hunted. The white cat from the farmhouse had zeroed in on me. She saw me through the glass door. She was crouched and poised, hid from the turkey by the sculpture in the field. She watched me - I watched her and the turkey - the turkey watched everything - except me and the cat. I opened the door, reached out to entice the cat closer with a morsel of smoked salmon, but she skulked away behind the sculpture toward the house. I looked to the road, turkey hid behind the stone fence, saw a car careening around the corner. It slowed down by the grace of what - of everything. The next car, coming from the other way, found no obstruction. I ate my lunch.