Cooper’s Hawk On Black Tree– Grunge Composition by kenne
All night black tree
shapes wrestled their dark
angels or assailants; the deep woods
wracked by shattering, cracking;
then rain drove straight
sheets like a wave’s crash
wrenching leaves and birds’ nests
from the branch, battering
grain flat in the fields;
mice, rabbits in their burrows
drowned.
At first dawn, soft
mists down the valley rise till
light strikes, enamelling
each emerald green leaf
splattered clean.
— from “Summer Sequence” by W. D. Snodgrass
Wow.
You probably recognize the hawk — it was the one on the Aspen Loop trail hike.