Hawk

Feb 21 2015

A bird of prey

occupies the high ground

in a blighted pine,

its dry orange needles

almost luminous

in winter light.

He sits, regally still,

wings closed, talons clenched

precise feathers full;

the big bird, even bigger

in his stiff plumage

thick undercoat.

Black eyes, with their hard shine

scan the ground,

immaculate vision

pricked by the least flicker or flinch,

of a mouse poking up

a distant puff of snow.

He oversees his sovereign domain

with preternatural patience,

the hunter

ancient as his prey.

The wind

passes over him

like an invisible hand,

small waves, ruffling down his back.

With every shift,

lifts

the tip of his tail,

silky feathers

spreading slightly.

He is hair-trigger

honed to flight.

When he shrugs effortlessly into the air

with sure placid purpose,

and in a single powerful stroke

is off,

an ominous shadow

racing across

the white undulations of snow.

Flies

as if those unblinking eyes

were tethered to a tractor beam

of invisible light,

zeroing-in

on a quick clean kill.

I talk about my occasional politically-tinged rants as indulgences. A purely descriptive poem like this -- usually to do with nature, and utterly impersonal -- is also an indulgence. Because I'm not sure how much it will engage my hypothetical reader. But I sometimes feel driven to write like this, and that's good enough.

(I say "hypothetical" because I always write with a reader in mind. What can change is exactly who that reader is: someone just like me? ...or someone who's less attentive, or needs her hand held, or who can't quite be trusted to do her share of the work?)

I've recently been watching a series on The Nature of Things called The Human Odyssey. It's a terrific study of anthropology, the human journey -- through population bottlenecks, barriers of geography, and climate change -- to occupy every corner of earth; how our adaptable brains and social organization made us dominant. It's also beautiful to look at. In the most recent episode, there was this repeated high-definition close-up of a snowy owl: sitting, in flight, hunting. What a gorgeous bird. Then today, I read the obituary of the much admired Canadian poet Elise Partridge, and they talked with effusive admiration about her close observation, eye for detail, hawk-like vision. Not only did this embolden me to indulge my own preference for microcosm, there was that image of a bird of prey -- again. And suddenly I wanted to write my own poem about a hawk, and to luxuriate in as much fine detail as I cared.