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.
