The Hawk (March 2025)

 

today after a fairly drawn out rainstorm 

I found a dead hawk lying in my backyard.

Peculiar like some sort of omen, with nothing to hide, amidst a patch of grass and purple flowers.

He was sort of all scrunched, other than his left wing, which was outstretched. 

His talons folded into his speckled feathers,

I imagined his fall from grace much like Icarus’.

I wondered where I was for the thud, I wondered if i’d heard and shrugged it off, if i’d perhaps missed it entirely-

I wondered if anyone had heard or given a damn when the hawk hit the ground, or if it was a sort of silent and unnoticed passing. 

I imagined his little hawk heart stopping midair and the mass of plummeting plumage that ensued.

I haven’t willed myself to move the rotting corpse of the bird just yet, it feels ill-mannered to shove the tercel into a trash bag just as easily as I do an empty handle or a stack of sticky solo cups.

I’ll likely let the cadaver seep into the earth like sand in an hour glass or vino in my liver, out of thoughtfulness of course, not out of indolence or idleness. 

The whole ordeal was particularly jarring on account of all the other lively warblers i’d seen that day.

The sprightly cardinal that had flitted in front of my car on my way to school, the pair of diving ducks that looked like little dragons in the center of the pond, and the green mallards sleeping in the park in broad daylight. 

all extant and vivacious, all singing and quacking and what not.

I most likely won’t sleep tonight, on account of the hawk.

knowing that while i’m held tenderly in my bed

he corrodes into the earth all alone under the moon.

I’ll watch from my window.

I’m sorry.