The sonnet sequence, "My Human Disguise," of 600 ekphrastic poems, was begun February 2011 and completed January 15, 2022. It can be found beginning with the January 20, 2022 post and working backwards. Going forward are 20 poems called "Terzata," beginning on January 27, 2022. Thirty more Terzata can be found among the links on the right. A new series of dramatic monologues follows on the blog roll, followed by a series of formal poems, each based on a single word.
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Thursday, February 25, 2016
Northern Harrier Hawk (Audubon), Sonnet #286
The Red-tail tracks the field mouse by its pee
With eyes that see inside nothing to see.
At one hundred and twenty miles an hour
It dives from great heights to clutch and devour.
But the Harrier doesn’t hunt by surprise.
She intimidates and terrorizes.
I've watched her, the golden chest and white rump,
Wings broad and balletically whirling pump,
Cross and cross low the same small field of grain,
Crash to the ground, then hunt the field again.
I first saw her flying straight at my eyes.
She must not have seen my human disguise.
Steering around me as she would a pole,
She dropped behind me and swallowed a vole.
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