(for my running buddy, Janet)
So many years we’ve jogged across this covered bridge,
these city parkway trails, but now you need talking
more than training, so we walk among bare branches
twined with bittersweet. You speak of job loss and how
you missed the warning signs. I listen as November sun
and a brisk pace warm us, in the background the song
of a creek rushing over rocks below.
Then a hawk dives into leaves just off the wooded trail.
As one, we freeze, scarce dare to breathe. We note
the whitish breast, the wings a rich mosaic of chocolate,
sable, tan. Above the buteo’s hooked, efficient beak, we spy
its yellow cere, bright as the Norway maple up the trail,
those keen eyes trained on us. One swift flap and the airborne
hawk shows empty talons. We hear a scurry, glimpse
the squirrel’s tail, escaping like lost opportunity.
The hawk drops back. Slowly it turns, spreading its auburn fan.
“A red-tail!” you whisper. “Hunting here, so close to us!”
Then your wry smile. “Sometimes, even the hawk misses.”
This poem was inspired by and is set in the Lehigh Parkway, a public park near downtown Allentown, Pa. Featuring seven miles of trails, the park was developed largely by the WPA (Works Progress Administration) in the 1930s. A 700-foot-long, stone retaining wall with decorative turrets and massive stairways from the road to the park is an impressive reminder of its history.
An earlier version of this poem appeared in the anthology, A Walk with Nature: Poetic Encounters that Nourish the Soul (University Professors Press, 2019).
After a career as a journalist specializing in bicycling and active travel, Susan Weaver discovered tanka, a five-line Japanese verse form. Her tanka have appeared in Moonbathing, red lights, Ribbons, and other journals. Her tanka prose, “A Date with the Moon: Limulus polyphemus,” appeared in Parks & Points & Poetry 2021. Weaver is now editor of Ribbons, the journal of the Tanka Society of America. She and her husband live in Allenown, Pa., where she enjoys theatre, music, and the outdoors.
Banner image courtesy Susan Weaver.
