This Moment: Salem, Oregon - August 9, 2011 9:56 P.M.

I am lying on the bottom bunk of my nephew's bunk bed with my left foot propped on a burnt sienna- colored pillow. A magnet is taped to my ankle and a large ice-filled ziploc bag is wedged against the joint. Earlier at the Mt. Angel monastery I found a hawk feather on the outer edges of the cemetery, bent to claim it, then called to my nephew, waving the feather. This is where I fell and twisted my ankle. I sat level with the stone crosses, the neat rows of graves beneath. I cursed to relieve the pain. I remember two hawks perched on the water tower lifting into the air and floating in slow spirals. I yelled, leave me alone, like a child to everyone calling to me in concern. I wanted to be left alone with the pain. The swelling is going down. The house is filled with muffled conversations and laughter vibrating through the walls. Silence now. I return to the stone grotto with it's white Madonna behind glass, standing on the world, arms at her side, palms open. I wanted to climb to her, clasp her hands and listen to the sound of my own heart. Perhaps I am falling so that I will listen, so that I will kneel. There is a quiet knocking in the house, as if someone is rocking, like a heart beating.