Hawks Poems - Poems about Hawks

Matsuo Basho: English translations of Haiku about Life 1

Matsuo Basho: English translations of haiku about clouds, geese, departing, empty nests and huts, lonely, loneliness, drinking alone, sake, longing, loss, death, hawks, the moon, Japanese culture.

As clouds drift apart,
so we two separate:
wild geese departing.
—Matsuo Basho, translation by Michael R. Burch

The old nest deserted,
how empty now
my next-door neighbor’s hut.
—Matsuo Basho, translation by Michael R. Burch

Yesterday?
Departed,
like

Respect from the hawks

Near the yard, I heard the mother bird's loud cluck, 
A signal to pull a sly trick on the hick. 
Yuck! Her chicks all ran wild and scampered amok, 
Scattered by the bumpkin swinging a big stick.
 
The dispersed chicks drew a cast of circling hawks, 
That were happy to see meals within their grasp.

Winter Hawks

An advent of raptors loiters over mall roofs.
hooded eyes scope the neon-lit spaces,
the concreted waste lands.

We wake to their screams as if this were High Sierra,
not Ohio where parent’s try-out or manage children,
open party stores, hunker through the coming
and going of baby Jesus; de-ice puffer jackets.

Gloom is plowed behind snow dunes.
The red-tails roam in loose

Delivered To Baby Hawks

Giant hawk snatched me up
Flew me across the cornfield
I wriggled violently, fighting her talons
Expected to fall into a soft hay mow
We passed dozens of them
I was shocked that her talons had such a grip
She held me for twenty or thirty minutes
I tried jiggling, wiggling
She did not release me
I admired her tenacity
She delivered me to her

Birds

seaguls in the sea
   ~low expectatations to reach~
     easy life to live

eagles above clouds
    ~small eyes with a big vision~
                 catch life at first sight

     

A Hawks Call

Gentle winds, drift
drift gently this
hawk above the waters,
brown like the clay
of earth's marble realm.

I saw the dance of crows
as I rose, far beyond reach
from the sight of golem eyes
of haughty men breached,
by the lies of serpents and swine.

How divine was the moment
when a hand lifted my brow
from the depths,
to the east
where my true call was,
a

Hawks and Doves

Did you shout out in shock that day as she suddenly stuck 
her spiked heel into your spine kicking you to the curb 
through the open car door before slamming her foot 
on the gas and speeding away tires shrilly squealing
leaving you lying there by the roadside 
red faced in disgrace
your heart shattered 
your brain

Forecasting Hawks

Unhindered by birds or stars, hawks fly over the sky. 
In his fanciful glades, pursuing a fog growing heavier.
A cloud, he realizes, will fall in an unfathomable spot. 
Thunder rumbles afar away, and my heart skips a beat.
The mists are moving toward the stirring leaves. 
The mountains are also home to young and ibex. 
Nothing

Counting Hawks

Counting perching hawks
trying to watch what they watch
while a speeding car 
beneath tense feet
races to overtake whatever blocks
each sideways glance.

Fifty percent of all bird songs go unrecorded.
Multiplexed avian modulations leave us
questioning our own questions.

Pylons loop their feelers,
thread fragments of electric birdcalls 
into sun-slashed glass.

Eyes wide 
trying to stay alert to the dangers
a highway offers as

San Fernando

A handsome hacienda down San Fernando way,
Whose curled sunburned tiles once gleamed from Apollo’s rays
Was home to gentle farmers who worked their crops each day;
And slept in peace while brown night hawks would flirt and play.

Furrowed flowing lines full of fruits and crops, row on row
By workers in torn jeans, with strong hands, made to

Touches of Warmth

gossamer is the breath
falling in heated touches
this first monday morning
of autumn's calling

sunrise tipped trees
smile back at the horizon
a reflection of dawn

translucid drops
roll off the curls
of leaves yearning
to quench their thirst

no rain comes
from cloudless skies
just the cries of hawks
as they cincture above
appreciating the warmth
sheathed in this day

The Hawks and the Doves

The hawks are gathered together, pulling apart a dove, eating her gladly.
Her shrieks and screams do not count as she is the wrong color.
She was caught at the border.
They have put her dove-lets in cages.
To be eaten later, at their convenience.

Discussion after dinner turns to assault rifles.
Home-one is against it, but he is “old-school”. 

Hawks Into Doves

Why do I like things
I can’t agree with

Why do I listen
when I don’t want to hear

Why am I attracted
to things that repel me

Why are my reasons
more muddled than clear

Why do I often
begin at the ending

Why do I hurt
the people I love

Why are my questions
confused by my answers

Why do my hawks
—always turn into doves

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July,

Hawks and Doves

To the ladies,
my youth

To the children,
my love

But to forever,
my words

Hawks that fly
—with the doves

(Villanova Pennsylvania: January, 2017)

Hunger

Hankering hordes of hungry hovering hawks haunt hoodoos in Utah. 
Underfed California condors cruise canyon cataracts for corpses.
Nesting, starving swallows swiftly search for slime and straw in Saginaw.
Gorging ravenous ravens roam Wrangell’s razor ridges in Alaska.
Eager pelicans patrol and plunge for perch in pallid Pacific waters.
Returning red robins round up ripe raspberries in Rhode Island.

4/1/2019

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