Ode to a Sharp-Shinned Hawk 

In 1993, a report from Sandia National Laboratory offered language suggestions for long-term nuclear waste warnings in the event that humanity’s current knowledge of nuclear waste did not survive into the far future.

When she returns from September observation                          the other is delighted 

             to inform me of her findings:                                        one thousand and seven hawks 

rising from the mainland bog, all marsh marigold,                           cardinal flower, round-leaved sun

             dew—engulfed in autumn’s flame                                as Saint Teresa, woman entirely on fire.

I have observed no such things                                                              with my two eyes

             though I have seen detailed photographs of                                          The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa

and also sketches of red-shouldered hawks, peregrine falcons and            I held a sharp-shinned hawk 

             in my hands this morning, in the laboratory.                        It was dead, as are most birds

we hold in the palm. Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane             read its specimen tag, and who alive 

             can translate? It cries out as the Sandia Report,               a message only fathomable in its

feel on the tongue: the danger is still present                                                   in your time, as it was in ours.

             The danger is to the body, and it can kill.                                     I would carve this inscription above 

the filing cabinet of birds                                                               poisoned and struck, birds shot, concussed

             beyond repair: this place is a message                                           and part of a system of messages.

Pay attention to it!                                                     What message have you for me, sharp-shinned hawk, 

             that must be delivered in the mouth of the dead?                           Someone must 

observe the peatland migration, flash                                            of life against a magnificent sunrise as

             awake and flying very fast, things blur at their edges—                                        the dawn creatures

we snag in net, in palm—it is hard to see the truth.                                 We are wide-eyed and still 

             settle for hearing crickets in their dried sedge fields;               only get a good look at warblers 

if we grasp their legs or find many small                                        bodies beneath the tall tower

             and even then we have changed them.                          Carelessness is a function of perception

and choice: beached rock crabs could be dunlin eggs                           or doorstops; an open palm 

             is also a gun. At the edge is a door                                                            shaped like a door.

There is nothing behind; only another world,                                           an entire shoreline and diurnal tides 

             inclusive, with its small animals                                                 we will scoop into buckets in the night.

North American Mesoscale Forecast System

Sometimes the New Year is like this: Your back hurts. Next week, you will receive a layoff notice. An x-ray indicates the presence of free fluid in your dog’s peritoneal cavity, and Eleanor has gifted you her old Janome sewing machine—an exchange for nut rolls. Down Mendum, a man decorates in reverse, leaving a bare evergreen in his front yard. We should not stare. It is a private thing, like a poem written beneath a heavy quilt, how the dog is naked when they remove her green-striped collar to find a suitable, large vein. 

The weather has warmed, comfortably, to a false spring, bringing nuthatches and busybody black-capped chickadees to your back porch. The dog turns her face toward the sun. Further down Mendum, past an Ampet gas station and Rye, you find yourself at the edge of the river. Sometimes the New Year is like this: You need another surgery. Your dog’s body has healed, and she despises the sound the Janome sewing machine makes when its needle passes through the throat plate. 

It is 8:55 p.m. You have eaten a meal alone. Downstreet, the man shortens his lawn, and the dog is crying to go out. She has grown old, is weaker in the bladder. Tomorrow, they will split you open, remove the strange growths that cause hurt. The medical professionals will do this. Sometimes the New Year arrives and you have already passed through the hills. You feel in your body the quilt of time, as one whose footprints are covered, tenderly, by the season’s final snow.