EPIGRAPH

To begin a new life you need
a hawk defying the sky
above the cinquefoil.
Every paradox flies still.
The brick-colored tail pinned
against the clouds is pure being,
the way that once, in another life,
talons seared into your back flesh
and lifted you high above the coma-like heat
of the tall grass. The confessional
part of yourself disappeared as small
as the cotton rat motionless against the backdrop
of goldenrods and bluebells.
Everything was lost then, or found,
the way the faint upswing dihedral
of the hawk's wings in the fever of the day
is often feared, or welcomed,
and then occasionally forgiven.

-Doug Ramspeck
Spring 2008, p. 60

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