Poems by Carol Boutard

One Morning Last October

by Carol Boutard

From Canary Fall 2023

Carol lives in a small village at the northern end of Upstate New York’s Keuka Lake, which derives its name from the Iroquois phrase “Canoe Landing.” Tucked into hardwood forest, her small plot is often occupied by deer, fox, turkeys and magnificent native marmots.

I watched a hawk begin to die.
Caught up in the rusty scent of autumn,
I was startled when it fell from the sky.

Before me, the white and sable flecking
of its adolescent plumage—
colors of river gravel and fall meadow,
but already, sharp contempt in its golden iris,
the imperial stare assessing me
as I stood nearby, hugging the mail
from the box at the end of the drive.

Here was this burly raptor,
armed with the curved dagger of its beak,
a gladiator’s poise, inured to the staccato
of sparrows and wrens gathering to sound alarm,
its aerial body so out of place,
no longer flying overhead, sweeping the heavens.

Hawk crouched, wings half-spread,
cocked for take-off, as if to rise skyward
and drag the farm up with it in its black talons.
It lifted only to drop again, anchored
by lead shot burning deep within its chest
as it called out its bright distress.

Pausing on the crest of the valley today,
I follow red-tails caught
in afternoon light, stretched above the wetland,
buoyed on the upcurve of their wing tips—
free to fly high enough
to spot the curve of the horizon, or glide down
and go close enough to learn
what danger my neighbor is pointing at the sky.