THE RED-SHOULDERED MESSENGER

Red-shouldered Hawk

Sometimes we grow forgetful of what is vitally important to our sanity.  Sometimes we are simply distracted by the clutter and clatter of life.  And then, if we are lucky, a small miracle comes our way — something unexpected that breaks through the mind chatter and invites us to be still, to rest in the unfolding beauty of the world.

This was my experience late yesterday afternoon.  After a chaotic week of dealing with various issues too nettlesome to mention, I discovered a magnificent red-shouldered hawk perched in one of the sycamore trees in my yard.  I have encountered this hawk many times before, and I've spent considerable time trying to get close enough to make a decent photo.  On every prior occasion, however, my slightest movement sent the hawk screeching into the nearest heavily wooded area.

Yesterday was different.  I felt instinctively that the hawk was approaching me, no less than I was approaching it.  It was all about connecting with each other and with things that matter in this world.  Once the connection was made, the petty problems of the week dissipated and I was overcome with the kind of peace that Mary Oliver describes in her fine poem, "Messenger," which appears in her 2006 collection, Thirst.  Like Oliver, I simply want to "keep my mind on what matters . . . which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished."

                                                       Messenger
                                                    by Mary Oliver

                             My work is loving the world.
                             Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
                               equal seekers of sweetness.
                             Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
                             Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

                             Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
                             Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect?  Let me
                                keep my mind on what matters,
                             which is my work,

                             which is mostly standing still and learning to be 
                               astonished.
                             The phoebe, the delphinium.
                             The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
                             Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

                             which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
                               and these body-clothes,
                             a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
                               to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
                             telling them all, over and over, how it is
                                 that we live forever.

HAWK

Cooper's Hawk

It was cold and crisp this morning, and I was looking for a little magic to begin the day, when my wife spotted this Cooper's hawk on one of the high limbs of a tree behind our house.  I've seen him in our neighborhood before, but he has never allowed me to get very close.  Today, however, was different. He seemed to enjoy my company as much as I did his.  On the other hand, he was probably thinking more like a hawk in search of food than a man in search of companionship.  As the poet Ted Hughes reminds us in the poem below, one cannot really understand a hawk unless you see the world from the hawk's vantage point.  Unlike humans, the hawk has no "falsifying dream."  There is "no sophistry" in its body, and the path of its flight is always "direct."

                                         HAWK ROOSTING

                                            by Ted Hughes

                        I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.

                        Inaction, no falsifying dream

                        Between my hooked head and hooked feet:

                        Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

                        The convenience of the high trees!

                        The air's bouyancy and the sun's ray

                        Are  of advantage to me;

                        And the earth's face upward for my inspection.

                        My feet are locked upon the rough bark.

                        It took the whole of creation

                        To produce my foot, my each feather:

                        Now I hold Creation in my foot

                        Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -

                        I kill where I please because it is all mine.

                        There is no sophistry in my body:

                        My manners are tearing off heads -

                        The allotment of death.

                        For the one path of my flight is direct

                        Through the bones of the living.

                        No arguments assert my right:

                        The sun is behind me.

                        Nothing has changed since I began.

                        My eye has permitted no change.

                        I am going to keep things like this.