The hawk is a symbol of vision, creativity, wisdom, observation, power and truth. The hawk soars freely above and as Warren beautifully described, “…there is hope for those of us who turn to the flight of the hawk and the truth of the light.”
Evening Hawk
by Robert Penn Warren
From plane of light to plane, wings dipping through
Geometries and orchids that the sunset builds,
Out of the peak’s black angularity of shadow, riding
The last tumultuous avalanche of
Light above pines and the guttural gorge,
The hawk comes.
His wing
Scythes down another day, his motion
Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear
The crashless fall of stalks of Time.
The head of each stalk is heavy with the gold of our error.
Look! Look! he is climbing the last light
Who knows neither Time nor error, and under
Whose eye, unforgiving, the world, unforgiven, swings
Into shadow.
Long now,
The last thrush is still, the last bat
Now cruises in his sharp hieroglyphics. His wisdom
Is ancient, too, and immense. The star
Is steady, like Plato, over the mountain.
If there were no wind we might, we think, hear
The earth grind on its axis, or history
Drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar.
even though the grain is heavy with our error–we seem to live in shadow and our
history guiltily drips in the basement – there is hope for those of us who turn to the flight of the hawk and the truth of the light.