43 Comments

I loved listening to the voice over, Elizabeth. I think it makes such a difference to hear the author read their own work. I live in the country and have buzzards overhead most days but it's like a new experience every time for me, I feel truly blessed they live nearby. And I don't think there is anything wrong with publishing your old poems, they are still new to new readers like myself.

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Lindsey, I just found this generous comment! Thanks so much for reading, and I'm glad you enjoyed the voiceover too. I spend a lot of time reading each poem aloud as I'm writing and rewriting it, so recording them comes fairly easily.

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What a gift to see this in your backyard! And a gift of your words, too. These lines are lovely ... but then if the hawk didn't come to you, there would no poem.

"a wilder field, towers

of tall conifers, cracked slopes of shale and granite,

the crisp untrafficked air, deeply alive

and deeply silent – why are you not there

instead of here?"

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Thanks so much, Monique! I have a lot of memory of the landscape those lines describe; amazing to see a hawk "from there" visiting the cityscape I live in now. (The hawk doesn't know he's "from there;" he's his same wild self wherever he is.)

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I have also been guilty of posting too many old poems—I think it’s because I’ve had longer to marinate in them and they don’t feel as raw. A lovely homage to a lovely creature!

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No guilt from me, Lisa! You're right about the virtues of having work marinate; I'm happy to post things I wrote years ago, just because I know them well and love them the same. I think my friend was delicately trying to ask if I was, um, still writing new poems -- which I am, thanks be! Publishing new work is exciting in a whole different way, do you find? When something's still all shiny and I'm convinced it's the Best Thing I Ever Wrote. Old and new next to each other is the best mix, maybe.

I'm glad you liked the poem -- and the hawk! I'll tell him next time I see him that he has another admirer.

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Beautiful photo and poem - thanks for sharing.

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I'm so glad you enjoyed the poem! And grateful to Substack's stock-photo collection for providing that wonderful shot of a Cooper's hawk.

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Beliefs about Cooper’s hawk carried beliefs that you were being watched over.

Another was one of resilience: that you could accomplish anything you set your mind to.

Especially fitting for the 26th Avenue poet looking out her kitchen window!

Wonderful written response to the unspoken reality that WE humans have OVERTAKEN their land.

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Oooh, hawk-lore! Thank you for sharing that, Looocinda.

The remarkable thing about that hawk is that he didn't look overtaken or pushed out of his land; he was so busy being a hawk that he wasn't bothered about whether he was surrounded by forest or apartment buildings. You're right, though, WE know what we've encroached upon and how much space we owe back to the wild things.

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Beautiful.

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Thank you, Mike. 🪽🌿

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Oh I just adore this. Thank you for allowing us the gift of hearing it read in your voice.

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Thanks, Kristine! To me, my recorded voice sounds like a nine-year-old who's up past her bedtime, but other people hear it differently (thank goodness), and I love reading poems out loud.

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I definitely hear it differently!

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This was a great poem for such a moment that likely lasted a few seconds! Some of my favorite work is stuff that expands an innocuous moment into one that last and stick around longer for the reader much more than it did for the writer.

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"Poems that expand a moment" is pretty much what I know how to do! So glad you enjoyed reading it, Daniel.

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I live in the small town hub of a rural area and thus have opportunities to see various species of hawk and owl, bald eagles, great blue herons, and - a particular favorite - pileated woodpeckers. The majesty of these large-winged beings is with them whether they're perched above the main road or an open field. As you say, they are made of wilderness. They're still there. It's just that their trees are now building, their fields backyards. Beautiful imagery and ideas here, Elizabeth.

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Love and gratitude to you and your winged neighbors! 🪽

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I love the powerful line break in the middle!

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Thank you, Donna. It creates space for the glance away/glance back, and for whatever the hawk does in that interval. Grateful for the freedom of free verse!

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Such a beautiful bird. And your writing makes he, or she, more beautiful.

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💛🌿

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Such a beautiful poem! Thank you for this! I listen for our mated pair of Cooper’s hawks every morning. They teach their young to hunt in our backyard. We live in a rural area surrounded by farmland, so they have prey aplenty.

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Thanks so much for reading, Caro. What a thing to have such active, unsentimental neighbors to keep an eye on ... !

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I love your description of the visitor's "blunt ballistic outlaw shape" and what you say later about "reclaiming its stake in the terrain that we carelessly call our own."

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Thanks so much, Sulima!

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Yeah, that “blunt ballistic” is such a strong way to evoke its high speed killing nature.

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🙏🏼

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So magical. It brings to mind the time we were walking in the park. It was late morning and the park was mostly empty and a great blue heron stood in middle of the park as we walked.

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Oh, what a sight! So glad you got to see that. Thank you for reading, LeeAnn.

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So good!

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Thank you, Sandy!

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A super poem. A wonderful, unexpected glimpse into the city life of the hawk. I love the real feeling of appreciation the poem conveys and the desire to repeat the experience. I think views from your kitchen window is a lovely theme.

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Thank you so much, Maureen! The kitchen-window theme has arisen accidentally; I looked through recent-ish poems and discovered several describing that view ... which I wouldn't have called an inspirational view, exactly, but add the moon or a hawk and lo and behold, there's a poem.

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