Photo by Sarchia Khursheed.

The Hawk

With wings outstretched,
A hawk hovers overhead.
I look up, admiring its flight.
The bird remains aloft,
As a gust of air carries it along
In the stillness of the afternoon.
The hawk soars between the campus buildings,
Then disappears from my sight,
As it pursues a quarry or
Scans the horizon for a perch.

But “no,” I think:
That’s not the way to end the poem.
The lines fail to capture the
Majesty of this creature.
And I realize any words I write
Are doomed to fall short,
As poetry can never improve
What nature has made perfect.

Sidewalk Stories (Kelsay Books, 2017)