The hawk’s eye glistens fire as the hunter’s moon rises above the horizon. This twilight is for heritage, for custom. She perches atop the fractal oak. Tonight, the field will shiver and hold its breath—tonight, she will remember what it means to be mortal, what it means to be a beast. In the distance, a rustle—in instinct, she pivots, leaps, and spreads her remiges—angelic, but an angel that kills. Soon, she is a lighting shadow, glazed in crimson, upon the amber below. Her home is the sky, and her prey must reside in her mandible. This is war. So perhaps there is some purpose behind the feather she always leaves behind— to remember even a fraction of herself before the hunt, before the harvest.
Brisk mouse scuttles off—
autumn fields dance in the wind—
diving hawk lives on.
Suhrith Bellamkonda is an Indian-American poet from Mountain View, California. Like most, he likes staying up late and sleeping in. Indeed, he’s quite a normal teenager. He tries his best. He searches for inspiration. Nothing dramatic happens in his life, so he resorts to writing about nature and his childhood. He has been published in the Stanford Anthology for Youth and has won several county-wide poetry contests. His favorite character is the em dash— his favorite word is ‘again’.