Saturday, February 18, 2012

Migrating Hawks

The street to the hill we would climb
ran past highways and suburban homes,
those tract houses that look so oddly
alien built on volcanic rock,
in among cholla flowers and sage.
Not adobe that grows like a warm
red mold and melts in rain and wind and time.

The Pueblos will not rebuild an adobe
of the ancient ones or the sacred shrines.
They let the windows, door and walls
crumble to broken-toothed gums.
We are strangers in this world, they say.
Let earth have back what we find in her.

The trail to the hawk banding station
stopped at the end of the street like a dead
end without reason or a sentence
that ends in new awareness. That new sense
of things grew as I climbed the trail,
in the place of no human building,
beyond the city and its chaos promising freedom,
above the fields swollen with new melons.

I was one among the many below the ridge
who came to witness hawk flight north
from Mexico straight up the Rockies.
One of the alienated seeking
redemption in the experience of nature
or simply finding a way to give the kids
a day out of the house and in the air.

The banders descended from the ridge
like prophets with tablets of fire.
The word they promised was not
in their heads or spoken with the lips.
The word lay wrapped in cloth
like a mummy in their tight grip.
It was the bird of the sun, a sign
held in reverence for its wild desire.

It was chance or fate that led me to handle the hawk.
I did not wish to grasp its otherness like
a thing from the shelf. I held him by the legs
so the razor-sharp talons could not clench skin.
The desire to fly filled him with rage and he spread his wings.
We stared at each other, uncomprehending,
I knowing that it did not belong there,
its home a world closed to me.
Home to which return was more
than desire or hunger or path to an end.
His truth more than knowledge or the curious
desire of science might reveal.
Known only to whirlwind and whispers.

(c) copyright 2012 Charles David Miller. All poem rights reserved.

Photo (c) 2012 Reena Walkling http://www.missingthemomgene.com/

25 comments:

  1. sneaky sneaky chaz...haha...nice job following the bread crumbs...

    lots to love in this...it def has a native american feel to it in the connection with nature and the hawk...my fav stanza, because of the allusions is...

    The banders descended from the ridge
    like prophets with tablets of fire.
    The word they promised was not
    in their heads or spoken with the lips.
    The word lay wrapped in cloth
    like a mummy in their tight grip.
    It was the bird of the sun, a sign
    held in reverence for its wild desire.

    and then into the next with the connection with the hawk and his world being unopen to you...a place known only to whirlwinds and whispers...nice close...

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  2. I really enjoyed this. Beautifully structured, but feels totally natural. I love

    "One of the alienated seeking
    redemption in the experience of nature
    or simply finding a way to give the kids
    a day out of the house and in the air."

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  3. Sounds like a wonderful experience, a very special opportunity....to handle a hawk!

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  4. I like your last verse...lovely images of you holding the hawk...what an experience to feel its pulse and wishing to fly away too ~

    Happy weekend ~

    (aka Heaven)

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  5. Sounds so exciting... you set the scene so well. I felt your anticipation. What a great experience!

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  6. This is beautifully written Charles and I, like most of the others, am charmed by the idea of handling the hawk ... a lovely read.

    http://thepoet-tree-house.blogspot.com/2012/02/columns-upon-columns.html

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  7. Wonderful write, Charles. I felt like I was back in New Mexico, or northeastern Arizona. Very vivid and definitely seemed to come from a native American voice. Very nice!
    http://charleslmashburn.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/the-last-watch/

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  8. I love this reference to your own text: "or a sentence that ends in new awareness". Thank you for this new awareness.

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  9. Wonderful poem, we are strangers in this world, and the hawk, eagles are so much part of this world and we will never understand, no matter what is revealed through science... as you say it is in whirlwind and whispers. Magical stuff...love it!

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  10. Loved these lines:

    "among cholla flowers and sage"
    "crumble to broken-toothed gums"
    "Known only to whirlwind and whispers"

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  11. This is beautiful and that world is closed to us. What a wonderful feeling to be at the door.

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  12. love the whole poem charles but this last stanza stopped my breath...there's so much in this...the holding, the fight...this huge desire to fly...to spread wings...to do what nature put in them...and in all of us...speechless about the richness in this...

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  13. This just got better and better as it went along.
    The apex for me was this:-

    The word they promised was not
    in their heads or spoken with the lips.
    The word lay wrapped in cloth
    like a mummy in their tight grip.
    It was the bird of the sun, a sign
    held in reverence for its wild desire.

    The poem seemed to crystallise around these lines.

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  14. Stu McP is having problems posting on the Blogger UI so asked to post the following for him:

    beautiful use of language. you brought that picture to life! I'm glad you posted it at the bottom- because once I was done reading- it fitted perfectly. Having visited the states only a few times (Chicago, Dallas)- you make me want to get on a plane and go and see its REAL beauty. Lovely poem...complex...flowing...so descriptive- and I'm really getting to know and like your style

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  15. Just gorgeous imagery, lush and deep both here, and the kind of poem that one can't stop reading to think about first time through, then hurries to the return trip for savor. The contrast here with suburbia, with man's artificiality and pettiness-muddled instincts and the clean cutting needful vision of the hawk is superb. I loved this line "...stopped at the end of the street like a dead/end without reason or a sentence/that ends in new awareness..." as I think it describes that intellection that opens the door of poetry(among many other things) perfectly--but the whole poem is full of thoughtful and extremely effective lines, many of which have already been quoted. Fine fine writing in this, Charles--my pleasure to read it.

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  16. Truly loved your poem, the rich imagery, the feeling of losing oneself in nature "One of the alienated seeking redemption in the experience of nature" ..is a wonderful line...loved the whole sentiment & style...thanks for this.

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  17. You really took the art and made a spin on society itself here at your shelf. Didn't even need the art as such vivid imagery you provoked with each line. But then the pic just reinforces it that much more.

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  18. An ode to nature...so beautifully executed, brought a trill and a thrill to me..Chaz. I can't isolate one line from the other as an example, because they are all linked and lovely. Not only an ode to nature here, but you seemed to have captured the essence of laissez faire and deep respect for nature, i.e. "I did not wish to grasp the otherness" A really fine piece of work. Thank you.

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  19. Charles! So much to be gleaned in this piece! You obviously appreciate how fantastic the image is...and your words, give it an entire new breath of life, prompting an entirely different angle. Just fantastic work...but all the good poets above me beat me to telling you! That being said...I'm off to read again!

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  20. Like others @annehedonia13 had trouble posting on the Blogspot.com UI. From her tweet to me, I paste her comment on this poem:

    @shralec re: "Migrating Hawks" ~ There's' so much in that Charles - rich, layered. I love the progression/ contrast that begins (metaphorically and in reality) in the alien-to-place peopled suburbs that don't "belong" with the landscape to the hawk ready to fly, to reconnect with a place to which he's so inextricably bound as to be a sacred, inexplicable mystery.

    Along the way, there are some things said almost casually like - the "getting the kids some air" line - and the allusions to false freedom of the city and the contrived landscape of agriculture that stand with as much power as the intense imagery of the sacred.

    Masterful, I'd say. And as was noted by the first comment, sneaky - in a meaningful way that I enjoyed.

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  21. This builds so beautifully, so subtly, toward its inexorable end, it is a joy to read (and re-read). Others have cited the pivotal lines, but for me, it finishes in a question: who is trapped? The hawk--or the man? Do not we all desire to be free? Wonderful poem, sir, giving us, as the best do, "whirlwind and wind", and a new awareness. Thank you.

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  22. @velvetinapurrs via Twitter writes:

    love how all power & life is held in the hawk, wild against the urbanity & decay

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    Replies
    1. Ms. K, I think it works at that level too. I was really fascinated - in the sense of fascinans et tremendum - by the wakan of the bird. Certainly the encroachment of urbanization came into it to set the mise en scene, so to speak. I've always been fascinated by hawks, even as a child. The allusion at the end to Job was to convey an awareness on my part that only G-d - if there is such a being - sees and understands the Otherness of the beings we can never understand, except by personification.

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    2. @velvetinapurrs, replied:

      well, it really worked Mr C! At the end the hawk seems as an manifestation of natural power, almost god-like in wild knowing ☺

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    3. TY again for your comments. This was one of my first experimentations with placing narrator and subject in their historical, social, and cultural matrix. Some say the narration is unnecessary, perhaps thinking the ending is the meat of the "poetic" message. I don't think so, since I do think poetry can work as a kind of historical artifact, taking off from Aristotle's idea that poetry is historical in some sense. Anyway, whether or not I executed it well or not is up to the reader to decide. From my subjective point of view, it accomplishes much of what inspiration provided as well as any ulterior motive I might've had! :)

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