Читать книгу Swan Bones - Bethany Bowman - Страница 9

The silhouette of a Cooper’s Hawk in flight is sometimes described as a “flying cross.”

—Hawk Mountain, raptor conservation organization

At breakfast, a stentorian crack

against the picture window

and the kids and I are up:

jam-faced, suddenly caffeinated.

A Cooper’s hawk hunches over its prey—

probable relative of the starlings

we shared a house with last fall.

The small bird hangs limp as Jesus

in the accipiter’s mouth

as its breath is squeezed out

a few feet from my bell feeder.

This happened before.

When we first moved, at Payne’s,

British bistro in Gas City, Indiana:

Hawk drives small bird into French doors

as I savor grilled brie with bacon

try to forget, for a moment,

my life in Middle America.

Not that it’s so bad—

this life with starlings.

They find their way in

through four layers of roof,

foramen where filigree pulls away

from dormer, into the attic and down

through century-old pocket doors.

Despite my husband’s best efforts

with foam spray, we can’t seem to

keep nature from waking us up here,

getting into our personal space, dreams.

It stuns us, drives us into the looking glass.

Only then does it mount on wings,

like a flying cross, glide us to heavenly places.