he couldnt say he ever saw a bigger hawk

itd been hanging around for better than a month

                                       seemingly every morning

it straddled its roost in the uppermost branches of the huge redwood growing out of a neighbors yard four or five properties down brightly greeting them as they sat side by side on the sofa having their morning coffee

he had written his granddaughter who he convinced that they had elephants living underground in their yard of this new friend of theirs who was so large that even the elephants were refusing to come out and play    they didnt do so until after sunset

  

he wrote her  “as usual, our friends the elephants are smart, and alert . . . ” so she didnt worry that the hawk might fly off with an elephant in its talons

though he seemed big enough to eat a whole elephant

this morning  opening the blinds  the hawk wasnt in the redwood

hed grow so accustoming to have his coffee with the hawk and her  that its absence was like him not kissing her good morning before rising out of bed or her forgetting to put half and half in her coffee and not realising so until after she sipped it

                                                                                                                it was untoward

almost uncomfortable

--   I wonder where the hell he got to this morning

--   I havent any idea where she might be

of course the hawk would be male to him and female to her

he rolled his eyes playfully at her

--   Hes huge

--   She is

their dialogue needed bookends

he rolled his eyes again

--   Im just saying I suppose  Im missing THE hawk this morning

he was tossing crumbled bread for pigeons   offering a small neutral token

--   I miss her too

--

--

--   Yeah   Okay

I hope HE comes back before we finish our coffee

--   Maybe she has indigestion from eating an elephant   Or cant get off the ground

--   Oh no you didnt  Oh tell me you didnt say what you said

she laughed   --   Did I say THAT out loud

I didnt mean it

--   Its too early in the morning for comedians babe

Just saying Im missing our hawk

--   Youve grown attached to it  havent you

--   A wee bit  Yes

Very elegant  Suppose though its never too early in the morning to appreciate elegance 

 

Or perfection

--   No  Its not

sitting side by side  facing out across the livingroom the diningroom  looking out through the paned sliding glass doors into the gulf of their yard and over their neighbors descending yards  they looked into the sea of blue air  reefs of undulating trees  and errant schools of birds lone turkey vultures swimming  as they had their coffee and talked

the doorway to the kitchen was over his right shoulder

a slab of fresh sunshine shone through the doorway painted by the kitchen window opposite it
 

it splayed itself on the brief partition wall separating the livingroom from the diningroom

  

if it wasnt for this bright exhibition at his peripheral he would have missed it

like a vampire at your door asking you to welcome them into your home  and then waiting very patiently for you to grant them permission to enter

it probably wouldnt have entered their home either

its first pass was a blur  he caught it out of the corner of his eye

he was superior when things attempted to blindside him  or  as in this case  entered through his peripheral  subtly visual things had patent with him  and he noticed them over an blatant item staring him straight in the face

he was notorious for looking through things

Its right in front of your face . . .  were the aggravated rejoinders when he asked

Have you seen my book  My pen  My keys
 

In front of your face . . .   their irritation tightly woven

Which he then matched with a coequal emphasis  Have you seen my fucking head?

Im not asking to irritate you Im just not seeing it  You know me

they did know him  Scarce things enticed him  Obvious bordered on blindness  and oblivion

he saw things on the other side of people  than seeing the people in-between

though it never seemed to matter much to him

but  

    the instantaneous blur across the fresh sunlight piqued him  ---

while she knew him to become separate from conversations  not hear her  a pet peeve of hers

it was everyones pet peeve when it came to talking with him

It was rude  he admitted

but  inevitably  he captured something

and shared it with them

otherwise  they wouldnt have seen without him    by themselves

he gained a generous latitude by sharing  in lieu of his despotic adversarial rudeness

  

Yes  You can call it what you will  But it is despotic  It is tyrannical

 

Youre getting carried away with yourself

No  You ought to try it on for size

I will   I will when you share something in kind with me

there was never a comeback  though  it still didnt alleviate that he was rude

and then  Why  typically was tendered

Why

his only answer  abysmally  was  Whyknot

yes  they knew he spelled with a k

another pet peeve he stoked among his family and friends

You must really love me

I do

Otherwise Id kill ya

Kill me

but when it came to talking about getting away with murder  blood didnt stick to him

                                                     ---   the fresh sunlight piqued him

the blur appeared again  more distinct   darker

the third time it was keenly etched  nearly enveloped the whole of the sunshine slab 

but it didnt pass
              the shadow ran across the livingroom wall and circled to the ceiling batted around the overhead light fixture  shot under the transom into the diningroom  careened over the diningroom table  down though its legs  through the legs of the chairs  up towards the face of the sliding glass doors

                                                      and through its shadow he saw an identical  smaller  shadow against the panes  the symbiotic pair ran up the routered pane bevel its planed face down the bevel across the glass floe up the next bevel its face down the bevel across more imperfect glass  and again  until it ran up the wall to the ceiling moulding and then raced back out of the diningroom  nearly hovered  then streaked down the hall towards the bedrooms and bath
                              the shadow   somehow    separated from the hawk

 

she was speaking

somehow she didnt see its graphite wildness

through the rooms

across the ceilings walls and floors

vying  to escape its unexpected confinement
trying desperately to find its rightful place

the last he heard her say  an astute elaboration  discussing her utter fascination with how blood flowed from the heart to the brain and throughout the body  its remarkable tenacious circulation and it taking but a slender minute to circulate entirely

which  rightfully
was as amok as the hawks freeform shadow flying throughout the inside their home

finally the shadow tiring ceased its mad flapping and found refuge  and breaths  roosting atop the white wood frame of a coloured macro photograph of California poppies hung in the livingroom on the partition wall in line with the now fading slab of sunlight

it made sense that it had

the macro of the poppies defied realism and abruptly moved one to appreciate how abstraction formed in Nature seamlessly

watching it  he returned to her voice  still not really hearing what she said but anxious to politely interrupt and draw her attention to the hawks shadow

 

but before he could a hawks cry pierced the room from outside

--   Did you hear that  she asked

--   Hes back

--   Shes back

--   Hes here

Now

--  Wha

--   There atop . . . 
his eyes moving to the abstract

her eyes deftly following     

                . . . but with the cry  the shadows fabric began to release  drizzle down across the face of the photograph

he stopped  didnt complete his sentence

--   Did you see that  she asked

--   Wha

--   On the poppies

--   The poppies

his heart beating madly

--   It looked like  nuts    it almost looked like   a bird   bits  remnants   a bird   swooping scattering down the wall

--   Oh shit  You saw

--   You saw it

--   Ive been watching it

--   What was it

out through the sliding glass doors the huge hawk appeared in a beeline from above their house towards the redwood
it arched  took altitude  then deftly alighted on its uppermost bough

they both made out its shadow climb the facets of the redwood foliage beneath it

2115,  Monday,  9  2. 15

he was a man of the cloth  a cloth of his own making  a web woven by a bitter black spider 

who rode in on a nightmare at the head of a fury of razorcleated horses

                                                                                                                      I heard that of him

I could see that

I watched him standing atop a remote hill

rigid  and disturbed

he was etched by daylight breaking behind him  and turning grey in its vapours

                       

he had been looking

hed been looking for me since last night

                                                                                            I watched him from where I hid
precariously  

                    behind a heavy brush stickled with thorns

I watched him throughout the night

  

I could make out the occasional pindots that flashed off his irises like the light off the lens of a deliberate camera 

                              like lightning shocks off dirty puddles   as he swept the 360 degrees of the sallow landscape beneath him

                                                   an inveterate watchtower

seeming invulnerable   believing himself immune

                                                                                  he stood on high  poised to either sound

an alarm for defence or direct strikes by lesser adjuncts who feared him

which  for what I knew of him  was more likely

                                                                                                                            

from what I knew of him I would never turn my back to him
or let him game me by a sudden innocuous advantage
 

he was not latent

                             the things he spoke of teeming in his skull were unsavory  and repugnant

though I might suppose one couldnt expect more from a man who was darkly infected
a considerable pustule  trembling near breaking  shining  and swollen    and vile

he could see that in a glass  if he truly looked

as he often took himself in

                                            yet he was unaffected  and uninhibited

so I did what I did because I wanted to   I didnt have to 

he was assuredly  evidently  very fond of her

I didnt have to  for lack of a better word  seduce her

but I did it to incite him

I wanted to incite him

Incite him

                as much his disgust incited me 

                                                                                     besides   she was drawn to me

as much as I was to her

if asked  we would admit our mutual attraction

but whose business was it  to ask such a question

 

why wouldnt we exploit our commiserate attributes      and bodies

he saw

and roiled ferociously

not that he had a right to do so

                                                   but then he was a man of the cloth  and likely he understood

that it was his right alone

   

and that  sensibility  was not lost on me

Id seen his corruption his side glances before I was ever introduced to him

a wild  unjustified  look of hatred glaring out of the corner of his eye

brusque  out the side of his face

                                                    that he hid when you came up to him and looked him in the eye

secreting his hand

his intentions

at top of the hill he trembled

the Dark  his ally and enabler  was escaping

cheated by the rising sun

he wouldnt dare attempt anything in light of day

No  not exposed

or apparent

the last I heard and saw of him was a dreadful cry  then the stomp of his heavy boots as he hurtled down the hill past the brush where I laid

he took long strides

his heels biting the earth

descending

                   he slammed into the barbed wire strands he had unrolled to skirt the hill and prevent my escape

he tore them up

unearthed their posts

and the whole of it                                                                                                          

                               flashed  and bounced     trailing in his mad flight

a remarkable train behind its black apex

and before him

as if I dreamed

                           mottled horses ran  snorting  and tossing their dreadlocked manes

                                                                                                             

AM dream,  Wednesday,  4  2. 15

1319,  Saturday,  7  2. 15

2152,  Sunday,  8  2. 15