On Owl's Wing

....the wind swept up beneath my wings, fluttering through my feathers like a thousand tiny leaves. I gasped, flapping and waving my wings frantically. I was flapping--staying up at least for now. But I didn't know how long that would last.
"Help!" I shouted up to my father. "Help me! I--I can't fly!"
"Do not think with your head, White," he called down to me. "Think with your heart."
Think with your heart? I closed my eyes, trying as hard as I could not to panic in the freezing air, engulfing me from every side. I spread my wings farther, slowly rotated them up back and around, bit by bit by bit in a rhythm that could not be discribed as feeling anything but RIGHT. I looked down, one eye at a time.
I was flying.
I let a relieved laugh escape my beak. "I can't believe it!" I cried. "I'm flying! I'm flyyyyinnnggg!" I laughed louder and harder, swooping down low and beating my wings to go up high. I was getting farther from the nest on Big Pine where my father waited. His voice carried over the winds, faint as a fieldmouse.
"Don't wander too far!"
I wasn't listening. The thrill of my face in the wind was too incredible.
And then, out of nowhere came....