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.

Photo by Museums Victoria on Unsplash