The Hawk

The Hawk


The hawk sweeps down
from his aerie,
dives among swallows,
turns over twice in the air,
flying out of Catal-Huyuk.
Slowly a seeing hawk frees itself
from the fog;
its sleek head sees far off.

And the ocean turns in,
gives birth to herring
oriented to the poles.
Oregon fir needles,
pungent as the proverbs of old men,
ride down the Rouge River,
enter the ocean currents.

Land and sea mingle, so we
mingle with the sky and wind.
A mole told me that his mother
had gone to the sky,
and his father lay curled
in a horsechestnut shell.
And my brother is part of the ocean.

Our great-uncles, grandfathers,
great-grandfathers, remain.
While we lie asleep, they see
the grasshopper resting
on the grass blade, and the wolverine
sweeping with his elegant
teeth through the forest.
And they come near. Whenever
we talk with a small
child, the dead help us
to choose words. Choosing words,
courage comes. When a man
encouraged by the dead goes
where he wishes to go

then he sees the long tongue
of water on which the whale
rides on his journey.
When he finds the way
long intended for him,
he tastes through glacial water
the Labrador ferns and snows.

Robert Bly

Posted over on Secrets of the City