An August Hawk
  (for our times with Gus Ben-David)

Unwelcome is mid August,
  as the cricket chirping starts,
And our Robins of red breast,
  who sang cantatas to the blue sunrise,
  who for long summer days danced about our yards,
  gathering moustaches of wriggling worms
  to stuff in their begging young ones gape
  even after they had grown as big as their parents,
Have you noticed?
They have flown, all gone
  and lonely in the place of their chat
  sing just the white noise of green grass cicadas

It drapes an autumn pall to see
  what for common knowledge we mistake,
Birds never fly North in Summer,
  they learn to follow for it, that collective annual odyssey
  for which they flock in January
More the pity, none go South in winter,
  the young must learn fly for it

In a seasoned adirondack, upon an autumn deck
  I was chilled by an angry screeching sound,
  a sound most people hear only on TV 
  as a Bald Eagle flies by
I assure you,
  no reputable Haliaeetus ever screeched like that
  for none of their pride would ever demean to be mistaken for what I heard 

That, to my birding ear, was one rusty crank,
  an elder righteously pissed off red tail hawk
  who, like an antique New England Farmer
  with his practiced Yankee swears
  was sounding off at someone, and quite rudely about it

I spied him on that bald a dead branch,
  his perk chest feathers puffed,
  hump shoulders meanly ruffed,
  and his face a scorning mask as he yelled again
‘Key-Yaarhhh!’

At whom in a backyard tree, I heard
  ‘peeped’

She’s begging
  I see it every year
Needy in her time of trial, she found one whom might hear her plea
  as if to say, ‘Uncle?’




I pity you, young Hawk,
  you never read about migration in school
  the parents you knew, who once showed you all
  who fed you since the egg,
They have flown, and you’re alone,
  grown, yet abandoned with the mind of a bird child
That common knowledge, the instinct,
  was not what you were taught

Can one balm the cruelty
  of a one once welcomed stranger?
We all learn

Watching me, watching her,
  and having seen enough to despair of the both of us
The rustic old raptor jumped off,
  winging on towards the Southward glow, where
  his crow plucked tail blended to the sun’s decline

I plan to buy new leaf rakes!

Yet hours after hours, even past the dusk
  I heard the fledgling beg,
  to the quiet trees, the passive clouds
  and all the neighborhood’s closed doors

No one answered her