Simon Ortiz: Hawk

Hawk

Hawk
sweeps
clear through
the background
which is sky
and mountain ledge,
--Old Chuska Mountain,
my friend, shelter--
His immense knowledge
of wind,
his perception
of circling slow wind,
his edge of wing
on air trail

straightens then suddenly
overhead,
directly above us,
the pines.

This man, he knows
what he is doing.

-- Simon Ortiz --
from Woven Stone


What would it be like to fly like this hawk?

I remember standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon and watching birds fly, first maybe ten feet off the ground where I was standing and then, beyond the edge where I couldn't go.  What would that be like, to have the ground maybe ten feet below and then suddenly drop away to hundreds of feet below?  What would that be like?

Simon J. Ortiz: The Boy and Coyote

The Boy and Coyote

for a friend, Ed Theis, met at VAH
Fort Lyons, Colorado, November
and December 1974

You can see the rippled sand rifts
shallow inches below the surface.
I walk on the alkalied sand. 
Willows crowd the edges of sand banks
sloping to the Arkansas River.

I get lonesome for the young aftenoons
of a boy growing at Acoma.
He listens to the river,
the slightest nuance of sound.

Breaking thin ice from a small still pool,
I find Coyote's footprints.
Coyote, he's always somewhere before you;
he knows you'll  come along soon.
I smile at his tracks when are not fresh
except in memory and say a brief prayer
for good luck for him and for me and thanks.

All of a sudden, and not far away,
there are the reports of a shotgun,
muffled flat by saltcedar thickets.
Everything halts for several moments,
no sound, even the wind holds to itself.
The animal in me crouches, poised immobile,
eyes trained on the distance, waiting
for motion again.  The sky is wide;
blue is depthless; and the animal
and I wait for breaks in the horizon.

Coyote's preference is for silence
broken only by the subtle wind,
uncanny bird sounds, saltcedar scraping,
and the desire to let that man free,
to listen for the motion of sound.

 -- Simon J. Ortiz --
from Woven Stone

A quiet moment of reflection for a man and recollection of a similar moment as a child.  I remember times when I've been out hiking and hearing a gun shot and the sudden silence that follows.  Like Ortiz, I, too, crouched and waited, waited for what I don't know, but waited for something.  Something was out there that was inimical to life--killing because killing was fun. 

Simon J. Ortiz: Small Things Today

Small Things Today
 at my Hesperus Camp

 
Had a tortilla with some honey
at midafternoon.  It was good.
Wished I had some chili.

Smell of apples, wet fields;
in back of the blue tent
is a box of last season's
Animas Valley apples; soon,
it will be another Fall.

Wind blows, shakes the tarp,
water falls to the ground.
The sound of water splashing.

Several hours ago, watched
a woodpecker watching me.
We both moved our heads
with funny jerks.

Rex and his sad, dog eyes.

Somebody looking around in a field,
looking for lost things.

Notice bean sprouts growing.
They're very pale and nude.

Rex doesn't like chicken livers,
but gizzards are okay.

-- Simon J. Ortiz --
from Woven Stone


Small things, little things, all sorts of unconnected things, but now linked together. I wonder how many of these small things he would have noticed if someone else had been there with him.  Sometimes others are a distraction.