PREY

The mid-day meal claws its way
Up the oak trunk nearing the branch
Where waits a hawk still as a summer day
The hawk like a ghost fades in and out
Among the leafy branches almost vanishing
Unmoved by the animal that now hops
On the limb just above the hawk's perch

Is there a hawk at all or is my imagination
Projecting a Platonic form there in the tree
Why would I see a bird of prey perched
Cocked ready to swoop down on chipmunks
Like a guardian protecting his private garden
Hiding in the sunlight my governing father
My potus my doom the hunger of a hawk