SOMETIMES GRASS IS A HAWK TO BE LEFT ALONE
Forget what you know about hawks—
the clawed mice,
the breaking apart of their oyster shell bodies.
I’m intrigued by their calm inclinations,
when the other birds won’t give them
a moment’s peace.
Sometimes a hawk just wants to sit a spell, ruminate on
dusk’s daily feint, the indulgence of vole livers.
My wife loves hawks,
says the easiest way to spot them is
to listen for the tree-bound fuss,
a ruckus of wings and squawks,
worried birds diving at the quiet
of a barely bothered hawk.
Blood gives the heart
its work, a reminder of the soldier
who said the most rapturous affair he
ever saw was a valley of wind-sprayed grass, the proof
of low-flying ghosts.
His point was how perspective
changes things,
how the grass transmuted to a field of
maggot-ridden VC the closer they marched—whereby
he incanted to the dead:
Rest up.
Good cause is the disguise
on the gift of your bodies.
Sometimes a hawk’s no threat.
Sometimes there are days when no one dies.
