I sat staring through the window: The cars and trucks raced past,
beyond the still, familiar, near: the bush, the trees, the grass.
Just then, I saw a butterfly that made me think of you.
It fluttered ’round the sticker bush, and back again, it flew.
Its yellow path was crooked; its plan and aim, obscure.
There was no smoothness in its flight; its jerks and sputters blurred.
For all their fragile beauty, I thought, butterflies could not compare
to the hawks I saw this morning, circling so high up in the air.
In grace and form and line, soaring, the hawk is beauty defined.
When I think of hawk, a hookéd beak is not what comes to mind.
Just then, that yellow butterfly flew behind the bush, out of sight
And, to spite me, angled upward to the sky in fast, straight flight.
Copyright © Jo R. Hawke. All rights reserved.
