Morning Wind Vane

A grey pigeon feather lay pinned inside a hairline fissure along the granite balustrade. Morning drafts off the avenue were tugging at its down. I knelt on the cool stone, gripped the slender quill with both gauntlets, and eased it free. The shaft was intact, undamaged by grit. Shifting two paces back to the shelter of the carved stone finial, I worked the tapered base of the quill firmly into a vertical mortar seam. It seated true. The soft vane caught the cross-breeze, turning three degrees north to register the thermal rising from the arcade below. Wind line established. Vantage clear.