“Chicken Hawk Talk”

Young RedTail Hawk, Jane Kohut-Bartels, watercolor

 Bodhirose ( Gayle) is hosing Open Link Night over at d’versepoets.com, where you can post one poem of your desires.  No prompt.

Lady Nyo

Chicken Hawk!

Leave my chickens alone!

I have worked hard for them,

A handmaiden of fowl.

Collecting beautiful eggs

The gift of the species

Naturally dyed

Pink, brown, blue-green and white.

 

These colorful gems

Presented at Easter,

A symbol of the Lamb of God,

And the Spring of Life.

 

Leave my chickens alone, hawk.

I won’t even share.

 

I remember two short years ago,

When I saw you wheeling over the kudzu

Riding the thermals,

Not graced with the brick-colored tail of a proper Red Tail hawk–

 

And I gasped at your splendor, a winged god

From the cosmos, glittering white ash against a cobalt sky,

And you landed one day in my birdbath,

Trying to look like a stone sculpture,

And just the flicker of your 8x eyes

Looked over the songbirds for lunch.

 

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2016

Chicken Hawk Talk, for d’versepoets.com

Young RedTail Hawk, Jane Kohut-Bartels, watercolor

 

Chicken Hawk!

Leave my chickens alone!

I have worked hard for them,

A handmaiden of fowl,

Collecting rainbow eggs

The gift of the species

Naturally dyed

Pink, brown, blue-green and white,

Jumbled in the nest,

Warm succulent fruit

Awaiting the promise of birth.

 

Such precious gems

Presented at Easter,

Symbol of the Lamb of God,

The Spring of Life.

 

Leave my chickens alone, hawk.

I won’t even share.

 

Yet,

I remember two short years ago,

When I saw you wheeling over the kudzu

Riding the thermals,

Not graced with the brick-colored tail

Of a proper Red Tail hawk–

 

And I gasped at your splendor,

a winged God from the cosmos,

glittering white ash against a cobalt sky,

And you landed one day in my birdbath,

Trying to look like a stone sculpture,

And just the flicker of your 8x eyes

Looked over the songbirds for lunch.

 

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2016

 

 

Chicken Hawk Talk

Some of our nine hens…..

–

Goofy, the Rooster.

–

It was raining and the Hens didn’t want wet beaks…

 

Chicken Hawk!

 

Leave my chickens alone!

I have worked hard for them-

A handmaiden of fowl,

Collecting beautiful eggs

The gift of the species.

 

Fragile vessels of life,

Naturally dyed,

Pink, brown, blue-green and white.

Presented at Easter,

A symbol of the Lamb of God,

A symbol of the Spring of Life.

 

Leave my chickens alone, hawk.

I won’t even share.

 

I remember two short years ago,

I  saw you wheeling over the kudzu

Riding the thermals,

Not even graced with the brick-colored tail

Of a Proper Red Tailed Hawk,

 

And I gasped at your splendor, a winged god

From the cosmos, glittering white ash against a cobalt sky,

And you landed one day in my birdbath,

Trying to look like a stone sculpture,

And just the flicker of your 8x eyes

Looked over the songbirds for lunch.

 

Jane Kohut-Birdtels

Copyrighted, 2009-15

“Chicken Hawk Talk” was published in “Pitcher of Moon”, 2014, book by JKB, at Amazon.com

About 5 years ago, we heard our  dogs in the far corner of the property.  They had trapped a young tercel…(male) or a young female, we couldn’t tell…but definitely a  Red Tail Hawk…..probably a fledgling.  Our son Christopher put on welders gloves and slowly got her around the middle.  Into the  chicken coop (sans hens) and she calmed down.  She was  there  about 3 hours…and we took some very bad pictures.

The last we saw of Hawkie was when Christopher took her outside the property into the late fall kudzu.  He launched her into the sunset and she glided over the kudzu for what seemed like minutes.  She, this dark missile floating on the red and gold sunset.  Quite a wonderful experience for us, and hopefully the hawk recovered.

sky to the North West,  Jane Kohut-Bartels, Oct. 25, 2012

 

“Young Red Tail Hawk”,  watercolor, 2008, Jane Kohut-Bartels