An unremembered sky

November Hawk

She daggers up into the oak
startled by a trespass of morning
walk, up from a sheath of field
flushing sparrow and dove in a
scatter of cries and quill dust.

Moments later the tree settles.
She sits her limb like sculpture,
turns her sharp head to allow
my slow approach beneath her.
We hold to regard one another.

Some moments between bird
and man, something between
reverence and ennui, so much
given to each nature, so much
more apportioned and withheld.



She draws a harass of mockingbird,
some ageless quarrel of kith and territory,
rapier tail brushing her back repeatedly
until she relents to set for a flight of
sheer eucalyptus across a broad acre.

Reedless shrieks come now from far
mornings of November, reminding
whatever might have forgotten her
that she is here to hold her due hitch
in the grand weave of tree and field.

I might keep this as a dropped feather,
some blankless message delivered from
an unremembered sky that said so much
in its dear moment until both were lost
to this one, to the one yet to come.

Joseph Gallo
November 1, 2009