A striking metaphor for time hovering or collapsing, in two versions of a bird, alive and flying, or keeling and dying.

‘Time still hovers above the tundra like the rough-legged hawk, or collapses altogether like a bird keeled over with a heart attack, leaving the stillness we call death.’

See also the bestellar review of this wise, enlightening book, complete with a mosaic of illustrated quotations and metaphors, and some fine Eskimo words.

Source: Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams(London: Picador, 1987), p. 172

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