A Meal in the Meadow
Was our prayer so damn unworthy
The Son rejected it?
A Coopers Hawk takes its meal
of the black bird, a Starling unless
I am mistaken. I am uncertain
since it may be a Mocking Bird.
And I hope it is. The Hawk
sits exposed to view and vanity
as it tears into its meal, Mocking Bird
or Starling, and as it eats the bird held in
its claws lifts a wing as in supplication
or perhaps, again, I am uncertain
it’s a goodbye wave to one and all
but I doubt that. Each curved beak pick into
the flesh is pain and disbelief as feathers
fly and fall into some pattern, I hope,
onto the snow below.
Eight of Clubs - Clayton Eshleman