The Trick

The TrickSerengeti National Park, Tanzania The lilac breasted roller is among the most visually excessive birds on the continent. Nine colors in the plumage, depending on the light and the angle, running from cobalt to turquoise to a chest the color of faded roses. In the Serengeti, it perches on the high branches and the termite mounds and watches the ground with a patience that looks decorative until it doesn't. This one had already done the hard part. The

Her gaze lifted toward the plain below

delivered into the evening air

a cheetah is fast but fragile

The lions had eaten their fill and moved on

He did not look back

but it found its purpose here

the contrast is almost abstract

This is not a charge

from a height he could never have reached alone

Its eyes are at half-mast

He looked at me the way old things look at new ones — not unkindly

burnt orange and red