There is something alive in a feather.  The power of it is

perhaps in its dream of sky, currents of air, and the silence

of its creation.  It knows the insides of clouds.  It carries our

needs and desires, the stories of our brokenness.  It rises and

falls down elemental space, one part of the elaborate world of

life where fish swim against gravity, where eels turn silver as

moon to breed.

How did the feather arrive at the edge of the dirt road where I

live?  How did it fall across and through currents of air?  How

did the feathers survive fire?  This I will never know.  Nor will

I know what voice spoke through my sleep.  I know only that

there are simple powers, strange and real.

-From the books Dwellings and the essay 

The Feathers by Linda Hogan