I watched from the back porch shade for more than an hour as two hawks floated above a stand of oaks at the far end of the field this afternoon, evidently indifferent to the stifling conditions.

(A reward of retirement is being able to just sit idle if one chooses. And providing the significant other approves.)

Every once in a while one or the other of the hawks would work its way about halfway across the field, a hundred yards or so.

Otherwise, they just danced like ballerinas over the oaks, riding current I couldn’t feel, much less see, any evidence of.

I don’t know whether they were hunting, courting or just out for an afternoon cruise as they used their natural flaps, rudders, ailerons and elevators to rise, fall, roll and loop.

They were still at it when I was called in because it was time for me to fold clothes, another reward for reaching retirement.

Jim Butler, a Bolton High School alumnus, was an acclaimed writer and editor at the Alexandria Town Talk for 36 years, the last 23 (1977-2003) as editor-in-chief. He led Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of Hurricane Katrina for the Gulfport (Miss.) Sun-Herald in 2005. Butler returned home to Cenla a few years ago, and shares his talents and insight with Rapides Parish Journal readers.