Tara Teeling - A Kill Beyond The Nest

‘There’s a hawk roosting! ’,
he says like Ted.
Exuberant, like a
sugarspun child,
he rushes to the window
to watch the bird
as it works and searches
in our backyard.

A predator dressed with feathers,
brown-flecked, silken armour,
the hawk rips and pulls
its broken kill.
It eyes us behind the glass,
watchful, but unbothered
and continues to make history
of a thing that was.

There are no sounds.

‘Beautiful! ’, he cries
with mannish marvel,
seeing freedom in wingspans,
power in flight
and a firm grip through hooked feet.
He revels in the unscripted necessity,
the precision and skill.
He doesn’t see the blood,
but I suspect he knows
that it’s there.

He chooses the beauty.

‘They only eat meat‘,
he says apathetically.
Then he turns to smile,
as I’m sure Ted must have done,
with admiration and awe
as he watches this creature
rip and swallow some more.

So majestic! , he sighs,
so I bow my head.

My nature
only lets me
think about
the kill.

Tara Teeling

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-kill-beyond-the-nest/