W. Pond I

Swooping lull of a cooperhawk,
         gray shadow
Weaves within neutral vision behind the lid of the sky-eye
         is cast past
Me and the trees—its audience.
 
Perched on an ol’ maple
         cooperhawk turns its copper head,
leans forward bowing
         slings tail upward salute.
White excrement strings down,
         oozes like the syrup sapped from the maple’s mouth.
 
Blink, and the hawk parachutes
         far into the thinlets of the twigged forest.
 
Groll squirrel leaps from branch to branch
         propelled by littering leaves,
chases itself down the trunk to the ground
         where it finds a fit fort for an acorn store.
 
Pond stands still—
         a stationary swim.
Surrenders—
         stream abandons silence.
Cool breeze a gape the ‘scape
         (or is it the wind I feel from the hawkhands flapped?)
 
Squirrel rustles for apples,
         day’s labor, afternoon toil for food.
Seizurely unsettling fruit
         it does not pick or pluck
as the bird chirp seems to resonate,
         but shake-snaps branches.
 
Soon squirrel will descend
         scratching tree’s backbark following fallen fodder.
But now we sit looking at one another—
         her perched peering down,
me standing seeing up.
         Gulp
                  splash
Pond speaks its tongue:
         water-bug bites its last breath
before swallowed by the sugar-lipped fish.
         All of us hungry,
in search for food.