Poems by Nellie Hill

Hawk Dream

by Nellie Hill

From Canary Spring 2013

Nellie lives in Berkeley, California, in the Wild Cat Creek watershed. "Hawk Dream" was inspired by a lunch-time drama in the Mt. Tamalpais watershed.

suddenly bright
like insight
a hawk floats
on a stream overhead
fish flapping in the claws

don't remind me because
it's wrong so unfair
that everyone has to eat
and this is how it happens

the fish thinks
somewhere within its
twisting body
within the searching fins
that it's swimming

think is the wrong word
it's a fact: the hawk is flying
with prey
the fish is swimming

it seems everyone I know
has seen something similar
at least once

it takes just once
one memory
as if it happened to you
real or in a dream
you think you're flying
trying to catch a ship that's already left
you're late
and where are you going

"Hawk Dream" won the 2012 first place Writecorner Press International Poetry Award and was first published on www.writecorner.com. It also appears in the author’s book, Winter Horse, from Finishing Line Press.