HAWK
by Kannaloke Napea
I wish I were you, hawk,
I wish I had your glare
to fish from that high rock
and lock upon a thing as small as I
with your incendiary stare.
From there I’d fly like you
into the bluish after blue,
dividing up the sky with
wing-split rhythms, beating
into halves the wind;
I wish I had your eyes
to see, your weight to light
upon some distant tree, to land
as softly as a rock in sand,
not heavily the way your feathers fall
with such serene intensity
from the unyielding fields of
clouds and endless beams
of constant darkening
and again brightening
sky. I wish that I could know
a world above the ground
the way you do;
I wish I could let go,
like you, of everything
below.
I wish I were you, hawk,
I wish I had your glare
to fish from that high rock
and lock upon a thing as small as I
with your incendiary stare.
From there I’d fly like you
into the bluish after blue,
dividing up the sky with
wing-split rhythms, beating
into halves the wind;
I wish I had your eyes
to see, your weight to light
upon some distant tree, to land
as softly as a rock in sand,
not heavily the way your feathers fall
with such serene intensity
from the unyielding fields of
clouds and endless beams
of constant darkening
and again brightening
sky. I wish that I could know
a world above the ground
the way you do;
I wish I could let go,
like you, of everything
below.