by Elizabeth Birch

The black hawk marks music
onto the sky’s blank score.
With a tuft of wind, she stumbles
and wings fall out of place
to steady herself, shift
back into form. Meanwhile,
song birds chatter and dance
between branches in a bush. I edge closer
with hopes to see them like I saw the hawk
— whole, imperfect —
but dragonflies distract from between my legs,
their mosaicked glass balanced
atop long blades of grass. Down the path,
tadpoles gather like school kids
in the shallows of a stream. I know
their fate better than they do,
their approaching abandonment
of what was once essential
and how it may soon seem to them
like they always had legs, always
knew how to hop.

Today, I notice
hibiscus trees, how some leaves
emerge straight from the trunk, as if too impatient
to wait for branches to grow, too confident
to be carried, and yet
their buds wait till late summer to open,
long after azaleas’ pink blossoms
dry brown and dogwoods’ fragile petals
fall to the ground.

Witnessing this world
makes me think of my future child —
a mysterious life that does not yet exist
or exists only for me — how
I want to hold their hand
as I walk out of this forest and up
these concrete steps.
I steady myself like the hawk,
black and white keys of my song blurring
into a windswept rainbow of gray.

Image via Sai Cheerath via Pexels