Map Drawn in Invisible Ink

A hawk glides in

on the hum of lawnmowers.

The light’s a sieve,

dusk sifts down.

The wingtips of the hawk

brush the grass

and in a single bound its shadow

soars over the ghosts of televisions

haunting dark houses.

The wingspan of the hawk

cuts a path through the air and disappears

behind night’s door.

The sky is webbed with echoes —

ancient currents

that cross and recross the silence.

It is a map drawn in an unseen spectrum,

a legend of lucid gestures.

***

I often seen hawks flying as the sun sets in my small-town neighborhood. For me, they offer a truer and more beautiful--albeit invisible--map of our past, another way of capturing how we are connected to one another and to nature.