The Dynamism of Hawks

Wind finally abated, all is still,
the woods complacent with its
new season, hawthorns not yet in life
but sumacs spouting, and Serviceberry
modest in pale white bloom.
Wildflowers have commenced their
shades of mauve, yellow, red and white.
Primitive horsetails, red baneberry
dapple the woods before the
leafed canopy fully emerges.

Last week's wild windstorm
that ravaged tall old, yet frail
firs suddenly a dim memory
recalled by the felled giants littering
the forest floor in a rebuke to the
spring rejoicing. The return of
gentleness under a sky alternating
blue with its gold warming disk;
frilled with white clouds shot
through with steaks of rain-grey.

Above the green-glazed canopy -
wild shrieks thread through dark
branches arresting the notice of
small, furred animals and size-vulnerable
birds. The dynamism of hawks swooping
the skies and the landscape below, alert
to possibilities as only raptors can be.