Hawk
Thursday, February 22nd, 2001In a clearing near the river, I found a fallen red-tailed hawk. It looked as though it had slammed face-first into the earth, wings outspread, neck turned at an unnatural angle. The fine down of the underwings trembled a little in the breeze. It was summer.
I returned a week later and found the hawk breathing. It appeared to be be writhing, trying to rise. I poked it with a stick and found its body full of maggots.
A month later, and the hawk's body was a dried-out shell of feathers. This lovely, predatory thing, reduced to a handful of matter substantial as ash. I debated taking part of its tail, but left it be.
Six months, and only bones. There were a few feathers caught in the bare trees, drifting across the patchy snow. It was cloudy, and I wondered if any of the hawk's kin were in flight, hunting.
A year, and nothing. A patch of dirt, some weeds, no trace of the bird. Raptor and rapture, talon and wing, turned to earth. It was summer. The river played along in its old tuneful way, spangled and clean. Something great had fallen from the sky, and the world, in its sleepy way, continued on. I thought of the dead, old loved ones, ancestors. I thought of prophecies and wars, great nations, Rome and Carthage, the burned-out Celts, the Cherokee in their furious lament.
And I thought of you, America.
