This Morning

in the first still moment
after waking into wonder
there is again the question, the ancient
question exfoliating in silence,

of how to be, here between see
and can't see, how to love
what the world offers to our eyes
and ears, to the touch

translated into what we touch;
how, later, on this particular morning
on the way to work, to love
the hawk a century high

in the limbs of a winterbare oak,
this hawk hunkered down, patient,
waiting for movement to swoop on
and bloody its beautiful brutal beak.

Copyright © 2004 Eric Trethewey All rights reserved
from Songs & Lamentations
Word Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission