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Chard deNiord: The Hawk
“…no one but death the redeemer will humble that head,
The intrepid readiness, the terrible eyes.”
from “The Hurt Hawks” by Robinson Jeffers
.
I was gazing out this morning from my perch in Bedford,
Virginia when I heard the screech of a red-
tailed hawk in the deep, cerulean sky
above a Blue Ridge mountain in which the other-
wise perfect silence was musical
in a heavenly kind of ironic way that belied
eternity as a realm on Earth when suddenly
its lyric of fear shattered the sky: “Death!
“Death! she shrieked with her sharp, prehensile tongue
as she dove like an arrow shot from a cloud
and an aural key inside her throat for opening
the ear inside the ear of her prey in its hearing
its end descending as a sudden killer
aria striking terror in the heart of a far
more deadly creature than she this far away.
~~~
Chard deNiord is the author of six books of poetry including In My Unknowing (University of Pittsburgh Press 2020). He is Professor Emeritus of English and Creative Writing at Providence College.
Copyright 2025 Chard deNiord
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Wow! I felt that poem.
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Yes, the rhythm pulls us down the page.
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I admire how the only end-stopped line in this poem is the one that ends with “Death!” The effect hurls one down the page along with that hawk…terrifying. Bravo!
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A terrifying hurl into death by hawk and a recognition that we are terrifying as well.
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And saw this just after watching our neighborhood red shouldered hawk dive
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Art and life like to hold hands, don’t they?
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Hard to write a poem worthy of such an animal as a hawk, but this is one that is. Kudos!
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Thanks, Bob. I admire this poem for the way the images unwind in a single sentence down the page leading to the profound conclusion.
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Bravissimo, Chard. A gre
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