So this book, as I was explaining to the class
this morning, is actually two books braided together.
I was working on poems more about me and my children
and my experiences.
And then on what I thought would be another book,
I was working on a series of poems about a woman and her
daughter and eventually her son and her husband--
although he's not around much--
and a hawk who looks over the girl.
And I had planned on writing that book as a novel in verse
and another book that was more contemporary and more
autobiographical.
And what happened was I didn't like all of one
or all of the other.
And I found that the books were actually in conversation.
And so I took what I perceived to be the best of both books
and combined them and then just scrapped everything else.
Sometimes you have to take the training wheels off the bike,
right?
And it wasn't waste.
It got me-- it got me to this point.
But I do feel a little bit bad for all those other poems who
thought they were going to make it all the way
and could see the finish line and we're running and running
and like we're on pace.
And then all of a sudden, like they just
turned an ankle right in like mile 25
and so this one's for them.
This poem is called The Hawk.
The hawk has never seen a girl.
This new creature smaller than a fawn,
song unlike a bird's, hushes the air with her gold hair.
The clearing seems an invitation to light her,
but the hawk has no light to shine.
Only shadow.
He hovers, training his own dark double on the girl.
They are tethered, an invisible string between them.
She rarely speaks but sings.
The hawk has never seen notes shaped
like hers, each one an empty locket with space inside it.
But for what?
This is not for birds to understand.
The hawk loves the girl best in the open, only sunlight
strumming the tether between them.
Her notes rising easily to him the way
an echo homes to the voice that calls it.