Sanibel

The roseate spoonbills are not so arrogant as to flaunt themselves on the day's end's air. When the sun at that spare, precise moment fills all beings - animate, inanimate - with awe at its set, they suspend feeding to face it, fold their wings, hold themselves perfectly still. Imperceptibly, sky, water, rocks and trees fold about them like petals closing for the night. And it's not until they're almost out of sight inside that rose color that we realize the sky's turned a feather aniline, now mauve - and the birds have started moving once again, feeding in the mallow water.