The expanse of green space on our property gives us a unique opportunity to serve the community by growing food for our local pantries. The same expanse provides an especially fruitful hunting ground for one of nature's most keen predators. I love all the bunnies and chipmunks and squirrels so it is hard to stomach the idea that each day one of them becomes a victim of our resident hunter.
Mary Oliver, one of the greatest poets of our lifetime, gives beautiful imagery to the hawk's stalking of its prey.
As she sees that "heaven's fistful of death and destruction" is on the move, she reminds us of "the tree, the cave, and the white lily of resurrection." She is pointing to the necessary role the hawk plays in our ecosystem - by performing its duty, it protects our gardens from being nibbled and pillaged. And we'll see later this summer how our gardens thrive!
While the hawk's work isn't pleasant, it is a reminder of the focus and vision we can bring to our service to the community. As the hawk's daily meal serves to protect our garden one scavenger at a time, we can serve the world each time we provide a meal to someone who is hungry, donate to a great cause, or lend a listening ear to a hurting friend. All of those individual deeds add up to a bounty of grace and resurrection.
Hawk - Mary Oliver
This morning
the hawk
rose up
out of the meadow’s browse
and swung over the lake —
it settled
on the small black dome
of a dead pine,
alert as an admiral,
its profile
distinguished with sideburns
the color of smoke,
and I said: remember
this is not something
of the red fire, this is
heaven’s fistful
of death and destruction,
and the hawk hooked
one exquisite foot
onto a last twig
to look deeper
into the yellow reeds
along the edges of the water
and I said: remember
the tree, the cave,
the white lily of resurrection,
and that’s when it simply lifted
its golden feet and floated
into the wind, belly-first,
and then it cruised along the lake —
all the time its eyes fastened
harder than love on some
unimportant rustling in the
yellow reeds — and then it
seemed to crouch high in the air, and then it
turned into a white blade, which fell.