Hawk’s Call
from Out With Lanterns
Some nights, the wind stops outside our bedroom window and stillness spotlights the rumbling of cars on the highway a mile away. As we try to drift off, it seems we can hear it all: Foot pressing gas, blinkers blinking as cars pass. Tonight is one of those nights. Too many cars, loud mufflers, air brakes. I lay here wondering: What’s the point of a muffler that doesn’t muffle? Earlier today, my daughter and I sat outside with my dog and her cat. We heard two hawks calling, their piercing cries so loud, all our heads jerked skyward. We watched one red shouldered stripe across the sky, then land beside the other who sat waiting on an eighty-foot-tall pine branch. Still, I can’t sleep. I wonder, at times like these, whether it isn’t the loudest species that will survive us. It is consolation to consider how in a decibel competition between the hawk’s call and the car, I’m putting my money on the hawk.



Love this. I always put my money on Mother Nature. And the crows - your beloved crows - they are the loudest of them all.