The Hawk, the Sky

Response to http://trailbrazin.blogspot.com/2019/01/prompt-48-listening-to-nature.html

I needed to write a couple of poems for my creative writing class, and happily they do double duty for the Trail Brazen prompt this time around! These are both based on mentor text poems in which we studied verbs, concrete terms, and sentence length and construction as a way to create rhythm.  The mentor texts are "A Poem for Magic" by Quincy Troupe and excerpt from a college essay by Andrew Kafoury that reads like a prose poem.

A Poem for Hawk

take to the tree, hawk

glide past me, your wing feathers

Hawk photo taken in Nashville Tennessee 2017

stretched like fingers on a hand

you hawk, the able hunter, with

sharp vision, incredible speed,

and color receptors, swooping

down so quickly the mouse or

squirrel or grasshopper

never stands a chance

the predator gets his prey

nightfall finds you, hawk, alighting in

the woods to roost, sending

out the final cries to the night

unafraid bird of prey, you

stare yellow-eyed and alert

nothing misses your gaze

mountain plain or tropical lushness

you, hawk, call home

perfect camouflage

you are a messenger and a reminder

of the magic which surrounds us.

hawk, please circle over my life --

make your shrill call --

awaken my perspective --

send me your bold heart.

Fort Myers sunset

 I Love the Sky

I love the sky. I love it in the morning when it glows with oranges and pinks and purples across the eastern sky. I love it as a backdrop for the sun, and the ever-changing clouds. I love the million varieties of blue, from pale to cobalt. I love the quick change of summer storms, the lighting bolts cast down, the voice of thunder growling. I love when the sky cries, reminding me of the cleansing power of tears. I love sunsets, the final stunning goodbye with the promise of more to come.

I love the sky at night, for the moon in all its phases delights me. I love the stars puncturing the black canvas. I love Venus and Mars, Orion and the Pereids, the known and the unknown. I love shooting stars. I love how the longer I look, the more I will see. Day or night, I live for the moment I can look up and take a breath, assured the sky holds everything I could ever possibly need to know. It’s all there: the support for every joy, the comfort for every sorrow, the answer to every prayer…there in the impermanent, ever-present sky.