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.

Night Fishing at Antibes (Picasso), Sonnet #285

The Spanish mackerel and the flounder
Are not deceived by the fishermen's globes.
Let's ask if they seek to die by the spear.
Raging, the spinning hot moon founders,
And the old Mediterranean sphere
Of dead tides rolls as scaly fish disrobe.
The old Neptunian fraud has blown his top,
While two young ladies lick their lollipop.
Of course, they have a cycle for escape,
And it's water, not men, uproar, not rape.
They seek the tingle trill of the near miss,
A bad man's rough caress but thrilling kiss.
They bike off when all goes drowsy and still.
The fishermen sigh . . . return to the kill.

The Night Wind (Charles Burchfield), Sonnet #284

The night wind turns the yard chimes into knells.
The chimney will topple into the yard.
The air the wind strikes, permanently scarred,
Seeks the oak knot where the screech owl yells.
The night wind lull lasts for hours, humming
In the pines and fooling crows into sleep.
The squirrel cringes in his leafy keep,
Ready for the coming vast summoning.
The night wind turns all windows into eyes,
Blindless and staring at the nothingness,
Invisible until it caresses
(Like light) a thing -- a branch that screams and sighs.
The night wind beseeches me to come out
To play with him -- still nervousness and doubt.

Freight Train (Charles Burchfield), Sonnet #283

Our frozen January bends the rails the trains
Straighten as they go at one, three and four A.M.
I'm awake as I am each night at this hour
Anticipating the hot whistle blast refrains
At three crossing barriers, each warning the same,
To stop this beast for you is beyond my power . . .
We knew the day of the hobo would soon return,
Just as they once jumped off to camp on an island
Two miles upstream from the old house, to strip and burn
Whole trees each night to warm and cook for a thousand.
I can't imagine (believe in) the engineer,
A life devoted to go, to stop, and to fear.
He must have dozed just now because I cannot hear
A sound but the thump of freight cars rolling nearer.

Big Fish Eat Little Fish (Hieronymus de Cock), Sonnet #282

My daughters called him Sam, the four pound trout.
When they hooked a smaller fish, Sam followed,
(Unseen but anticipated), then swallowed.
They laughed and pulled until he spit it out.
Fish eat their own species. Bass in a pond
Will empty dark waters of their own kind
Until the largest is also the last.
It will slowly, stealthily, hunt beyond
What it can see until it becomes blind
With hunger, then start swimming very fast.
Some lures they call plugs look like little fish.
Does a pike with hooks in its jaw shimmy
In agony, or shiver in ecstasy,
The water gods having granted its wish?

Orion in Winter (Charles Burchfield), Sonnet #281

Tonight the stars sleep with their eyes open --
The only way they can see each other.
Orion hunts with eternal hoping
As he was taught by his Gorgon mother.
The stag was belly-shot miles back and stares,
The constellation swirling in his eyes.
No one stepped out beneath the winter skies
To follow his blood beneath its bright flares
To end his agony with guns. He dies,
Ascends to run with lions, wolves, and bears.
Furious Orion ropes nearby stars
And lashes up his celestial car.
He'll drive it hard to the home of his birth
And hunt to death every man on earth.

Note: In Greek mythology, Orion was a gigantic, supernaturally
strong hunter, born to Euryale, a Gorgon, and Poseidon (Neptune).
It is said he once boasted that he would kill every animal in the
world.

Chalk Cliffs on Rugen (Caspar David Friedrich), Sonnet #280

We're here in the blue night of a new year.
The moon ignites the chalk walls like brother
Scolding brother and slowly floats nearer.
The sycamore trees clutch at each other.
My hat falls off as I examine cracks
On the cliff edge not here a year ago.
I stuff broken bits into burlap sacks
To examine later in the chateau.
My cousin and his wife are now estranged.
She points at something below: "What is that?"
(She knows the secret night he has arranged.)
My cousin replies, "That's my cousin's hat."
I gauge this cliff will dissolve in the sea
Before the end of the century.