Hawk Ii Poem by Morgan Michaels

I could see it turn, slightly-the sickle-like beak
over which it watched a handful of wrens
chatter mockingly in a leafless, nearby tree;
the umber thumbprints of its breast coverts
stenciled on to perfect scale, strung in bead-like arcs;
its tale from which the vivid spark of no fire leapt
when it turned suddenly into the sun. Just more brown
suggesting youth or a different kind of hawk;
see its talons aclutch the iron rail.

It looked a little untidy. Was it left behind?
Did it miss its friends? Was it sick? Welcoming new feathers?
suggested by those flakes of down stuck to its back.
Here it was November:
What time hawks fledge and fly away I forget.

Terrified, I didn't dare move a shiver
for fear the thing would flap away-a fear
seeming, for the moment, to outweigh
the fear that it would stay, people
these days being more comfortable
with Nature on the run
than any kind of Nature upper hand.