Readiness
I catch the poems I am fit for … A man’s readiness is his limit. The Boyhood of Fionn Four ravens annoy a grey goshawk. They don’t attack it but follow it around, landing where it lands, yelling ‘ Hawk! Down low! Here! ’ I track the sound and step outside at each crescendo when the hawk takes wing from tree to tree. Without my glasses, hawk and ravens, brilliant in their contrast, look strangely magnified rather than diminished – unboundaried, unplaceable. Moving leisurely, with an ‘Am I bothered?’ look, the hawk ignores the ravens for an hour or more but is distracted enough to land at one stage in the big bluegum where brown falcons nested this year, and they too get on its case. Goshawks are ambush hunters that rely on concealment, their prey not knowing where they are; eventually, unable to hunt or rest, this one starts to look sullen, takes itself into the dense, soft greenery of a young wattle where the ravens and falcons can’t easily follow. There it sits hunched, a c