Hawk!

Dreams

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.

Inaction, no falsifying dream

Between my hooked head and hooked feet:

Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat...

—-

Inaction. No falsifying dream. Praise Creation for the underpin of towering foliage acting as my throne of thorns, piercing not my flesh but capitulating instead to the iron penetration of my talons, a mosquito piercing the skin of its victim. Where this Creation came from, I know of its souce; I have the power to question its root and stem. I know what it is.

Claws locked upon the whipped skin of bark, I arouse from my regal slumber, cranium of hook and stature of divinity, the divergence of conscious and dream splitting before my eyes of dazzling rifle fire. My sailed wings responded with discomfort, elongating to display their majesty of laced intertwined flecks, gold and bronze, all incomplete plumage plucked from its unwelcome perch in the sea of feathers long before.

I fly upwards as my hunger cries for satiation, allowing my flight to revolve around the kingdom I clasp in my gauntlered feet. Wings of flaxen-tributaried contour sliced the air like a plow through earth, like an our through liquid; below is the ligneous arboreal paradise of trees - sapling, evergreen, fir, hawthorn... it does not matter. It is my upkeep, the pinfold of all I own. Beneath my aviation furled a senseless creature trudging through its squalor, a prominent flaw in the world's terrain; I scrutinised the difficulty in which it took to salvage some nourishment bred from the soil.

I did not feel sympathy - but who am I to ignore a beast in such a need, a subject of my dominion?

My target I honed into - the wieldment of my daggered talons I unsheathed from their clenched placement - my apex a helm of crooked beak, finer than any steel - I was the rebrobational finework of God, claws as sharp as my wit, sharp as lies - not an art of God, but perhaps a God myself - globulations of saliva simmered to the galvanise of my mouth, mahogany burnished feathers turning crimson in the explosion of sunlight.

And then I dropped. Target acquired. A raindrop of golden heat, I snaked from the clouds with a chagrin only blood could content, voracity thrumming within me like the beating of a war drum - I struggled to contain this, in caution my victim would discover my devious intentions, hear the pounds of my heart; for even the most fearful of soldiers are rallied by the rhythm of the drum.

My arsenal of glistening talons flexed in anticipation - a mind of their own, their tyrannical capabilities would be put to their use. My prey was oblivious, its core focus to conflict against similar beings over consumption of the best food - to me, this had as much importance as two ticks fighting for control over the cat. And the cat was fighting back - not a lion, not a tiger - something greater. Me. A Hawk. My composition one of perfection. My prey enlarged in shape, our distance closing, a screech of high sonourous spectre tearing from my vocals...

And then the explosion hit. One of obsolete carnage; shards of fibre littered the air like a storm of feathered and furred debris, claret plasmatic liquid salivating from the gaping caverns inflicted by my talons. A distant grumbling hovered in the larynx of the prey I had conceived into a state of immobilisation, an accompanying flash of alabaster fangs flying from its jaws; I excelled in their suffering, a lusted war cry firing from my beak like a rifle squadron as I felt my rehearsed slaughter take divine effect.

No protestment from my quarry could assert my right. My eye has permitted no change. The fiery lagoon of blood pooled around my feet, a murky ink swelling in a rhythm of succumbing relinquishment, prodding me in a state of mercy, begging my leave.

I would not withstand such deserved flith to taint my feathers. I had been Created - but now I served Uncreation. I was the balance between life and death; life with unassurance was akin to wings without flight. I resolved all with an arresting screech - my justice tore off heads - my democracy mauled sophistry - the Earth opened before me for inspection - and it was all mine.

Mine. And now so was this beast's life - coiled in my grip, praying for release - and the buoyancy of my wings whipped the air into submission as I slinked across the sky like a snake in the garden of Creation. The battle subsided, my kill gone limp - and the animal slipped from my clutch like a stone from the heavens, into the yawning anticipation of the tundras below, a fire licking at the stumps of its masters, conflagrations of glissading blaze sprouting from the earth and elevating my gradient of flight.

I had found another. This one was mine. I wanted nothing to change.

Yet even a Hawk such as me finds their culmination.

—

The sun is behind me.

Nothing has changed since I began.

My eye has permitted no change.

I am going to keep things like this.

—

Inspired by Ted Hughes' Hawk Roosting poem.