Augury, Winter Solstice

Day 1

A red-shouldered hawk lands
on a branch of the sugar maple
outside my office window,
looks around intently,
watches,
anticipates his next moves.

Now he relaxes and preens:
neck flexible as an owl’s,
he bends and cleans
both shoulder pits,
both wings,
his back, chest, tail—
splaying it up tall, one side
then the other, like a fan-dancer.

Finally, tail spread like a turkey’s,
back-bending like a yogi,
he completes the diligent tending
of every part of himself,
as we must nurture ourselves,
our loved ones, and, urgently,
our wild animal kin.

Erect, suddenly alert,
wings wide, he glides down,
snatches something from the trail,
and floats up to a branch,
facing away, back
indistinguishable from bark.

Many of us must camouflage
to protect our backs
these days so
we can’t be seen as
we sup the sustenance
we so desperately need
in these troubled times.

 Day 2

The red-shouldered hawk lands
on a branch of the sugar maple
outside the window,
facing away—still, as if resting.
Wondering if he is he
or she, I learn that
females are heftier,
but you can only
tell if they are together.

A moment later, a rounder hawk
joins him, and they sit close,
side by side, sometimes
facing intimately,
almost beak to beak,
sometimes turning away,
looking to the outer world,
for signs of succor,
much as we other lovers do.

Hawks are monogamous,
returning to the same territory
year after year, males
sharing all nest-making
and chick-rearing duties,
models of masculinity
we might long for these days.

Watching the movement of
hawks scanning for signs of
scurry, like Roman or Druid
diviners who watched
the movement of birds
to discern messages
from the spirit world,
we scan for the wisdom
we so desperately need
in these troubled times.

Day 3
Late afternoon, sun slanting,
at a winter solstice gathering
to celebrate darkness and
the returning light, accompanied
by Rumi’s love poems,
we are about to circle up
to dance words of devotion
when someone notices a large
hawk on a branch of the beech
tree outside the window.

Facing away, even against the
smooth gray bark of beech,
he can barely be detected,
camouflaged by the dance of the
light straw leaves with their dark shadows.

As small groups furtively
crowd to observe him or her,
someone tells about a riveting
face-to-face visitation, and another
murmurs quietly, as if to his own
heart, that hawk is his totem.

Perhaps many of us secretly
recognize that hawk has come
with a message and try to
divine its meaning.

Who among us wonders if hawk’s
arrival bears some relation to
an invitation, a certain gesture of kinship
made to the world—
as if Earth returns such regard—
and holds that possibility
tenderly, as a talisman
of love for these heart-
breakingly beautiful times.

—BL Chaika-Hawkins