Her slender, delicate body shook from
heart pounding vibrations that radiated into my cupped hands.
Half closed eyes, rumpled soft gray feathers, aware but not alert,
the young dove, stunned from the window crash,
was on her back when I scooped her up
from the patio floor.
A hawk, elegant agile pursuer, gripped the metal fence railing
above her with his razor talons. Enraged by my interference,
the beautiful predator screamed when I knelt above her
quivering body, ruffled his wings to intimidate, then flew
to a low mesquite branch to let out his obvious anger.
The names he must have called me!
In time she calmed, relaxed into my hands and
watched me through little black slit eyes.
Hawk danced from limb to limb,
unwilling to give up the prey.
Determined in his task as she was in hers.
Life or death? Food or famine?
The contest played out before me,
the reality of all the beauty and brutality
that surrounds us.
I asked her if she was going to live or die.
She closed her eyes and breathed softly.