by Carlos Baker
I. THE HAWK
The brazen-footed hawk above the wood
Banks silently, and silently the sun
Tips beak and claw as with that creature's blood
Whose day was done before this day was done.
As he the ground, so we scan heaven for change,
Hawk's-eyed, yet groundlings chiefly—one with those
Who wait the stranger known as worse than strange:
A sudden air-born shadow dipping close
To merge impossible fantasy with fact,
To rend surprise in two and hold the prize
Before reaction can defeat the act
Or premonition show monition wise.
Here, bloodied only by sun, we stay
Awaiting that which does not come, but may.
II. CALLING IN
So the report runs, so the word is said
(The singing wire takes the short song best) :
"One plane, bimotor, low, heard overhead,
Out of the northeast, flying due southwest."
We do not say, 'This is the kind of night
Wool makes a warmer blanket than the snow;
Three in the morning is no time to fight;
Suppose we call it quits, pack up, and go"—
Or, "Looking up, with hands bent round our eyes,
We could not see the monster for the sleet,
Though we have taught our ears to recognize
His gross, explosive, guttural, double beat."
We give direction, type, and height instead:
"One plane, bimotor, heard low overhead."
III. DOG WATCH
The transient dog who came to try our love,
Pre-empt our ancient armchair like a throne,
To curl his muddy curls beside our stove,
And lick our broken bread for lack of a bone,
Was one of those for whom the watch was kept.
What tramp, which brotherhood of monks
He represented where he laxly slept,
What savages, what children, or what drunks,
What tattered treasure in the terrible wind,
What snoring slumberer in another's bed,
What hapless innocent, what heedless hind,
We never asked him, and he never said.
Yet for his bootless joy, his fruitless right,
We stared the stronger through the transient night.
IV. TWO WORLDS
O life of silver in the lofty air,
Translucency of wings there, high, way high,
Deluge-descent of drone beats falling where
We stand, way low, of earth, as they of sky:
We know their drift, though lacking downward look
On border sand beside the corduroy sea,
On wrinkled pasture ragged at the brook,
On movement merged to immobility.
Yet their monotonous eminence of place
Negates the lesser noise, the closer grain
Of what on earth we recognize as good.
We own the silence and enough of space
To seize, in trembling consciousness of gain,
The flight of deer within the flickering wood.
V. NIGHT WATCH : WINTER
Invisible above the frozen field,
Inaudible as ice in seams of stone,
In ruthless action inwardly revealed,
Once more the arrow wind barbs deep in bone.
The demon cold, dispassionately borne,
Accepts the tribute of our uttered breath
Vanishing fast above the ruined corn
Like a premonitory sight of death.
And down amongst the stubble, swept of snow,
The scattered vertebrae of animals lie,
Unwatching eyes, reproving from below
The warden stars in the perpetual sky,
Both powerless, being past power, to do what we
Conceive that task of vigilance to be.
VI. ALL'S WELL
Now ring the bell, call in the passing plane
Which carries home the signatures of peace.
Now close the door, domesticate again,
And revel in the softness of release.
Now scrape before your mirrors, build your roads,
And watch your children laughing in the sun,
Accept the here and now, follow your codes,
And do unto your neighbor what is done.
Yet know : beards grow, the jungle will encroach,
The unwatched child may stare beneath the wheel,
The near and dear recede, the far approach,
The neighbor-nation fabricate in steel.
Another hand may ring the watchman's bell,
An alien tongue proclaim that all is well.
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