HAWK ROOSTING
I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet: *anaphora
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.
The convenience of the high trees!
The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth's face upward for my inspection.
My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot
Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body: *deception/trickery
My manners are tearing off heads - inferred comparison
to humans being
The allotment of death. deceitful
For the one path of my flight is direct * diction of violence
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:
The sun is behind me. * the natural order of things
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.
In “Hawk Roosting” the hawk is symbolic of Nature itself, which, treats everything as a means to
its end.
The hawk thinks that he can control everything. The earth is created to serve him; “The
convenience of the high trees!” The poem focuses on the notion that violence in the hawk's
world is not morally wrong, but that “tearing off heads” is innate in him; this is merely the
etiquette or “manners” of the natural world. It is a necessary violence that is part of the cycle
of life.
The hawk is very satisfied with his ability in controlling and hunting other creatures and takes
pride in his physical prowess and advantages.
I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet: *anaphora
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.
The convenience of the high trees!
The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth's face upward for my inspection.
My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot
Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body: *deception/trickery
My manners are tearing off heads - inferred comparison
to humans being
The allotment of death. deceitful
For the one path of my flight is direct * diction of violence
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:
The sun is behind me. * the natural order of things
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.
In “Hawk Roosting” the hawk is symbolic of Nature itself, which, treats everything as a means to
its end.
The hawk thinks that he can control everything. The earth is created to serve him; “The
convenience of the high trees!” The poem focuses on the notion that violence in the hawk's
world is not morally wrong, but that “tearing off heads” is innate in him; this is merely the
etiquette or “manners” of the natural world. It is a necessary violence that is part of the cycle
of life.
The hawk is very satisfied with his ability in controlling and hunting other creatures and takes
pride in his physical prowess and advantages.
