Hawks

Wind on the hilltop:
sky rushes up at it,
crowded with hawks as
leaves in the grasses
clinging, loosening,
tumble like sparrows and
newspapers crackle
pinned on the fences,
caught from the sky.

Ah, will the city too
— buildings there — loosen,
tumble like leaves,
all of its lights there
dotting in darkness
swirl up and out like
sparks from a chimney?
Airliners lumber where
hawks are at home,

swiveling over on
wind-gusts balancing —
flick then, off and
way down miles. . . .
O, they dance, they
pirouette like
water spiders
over the footloose
crumbling of air,

walking the wind like
jugglers —jugglers who
stand on their fingers
poised on the looping
puffs they are catching. . . .
Man, were he hawk, how
grimly, importantly
over this wild sky
he would walk!