Memorial to Hawk

Beautiful hawk sitting on our little tree outside.

The other day I had the most exciting experience. I was walking through the kitchen in the late afternoon, and what did I see out the window, but a glorious hawk sitting right at the top of our little weeping snow mountain cherry tree. It was so close I could almost touch it. So I ran for my camera and took a couple of pictures before he flew away. WOW, so exciting. I just love hawks.

Then, two days later, I was walking around the yard in the nice squishy mud with the pups, enjoying the patches of melting snow and the unusually warm temps, after that wicked, freezing cold snap. And as I walked under the towering blue spruce tree I saw, amidst the pachysandra, that hawk. Quite dead.

"Oh no." I said. The pups were very respectful and stayed a few feet away. 

I went into the garage and put on a pair of Rob's leather gardening gloves (because mine had icky spider sacks in-between the fingers) and grabbed a large piece of black plastic. Trudged back to where the hawk had fallen and picked him up. Then sat on the porch for about 40 minutes looking at him. God he was just gorgeous.

The sun was shining the way it does in the late afternoon if it's out, slanting rays across the backyard, and I had the hawk laying in front of me on the ottoman on the back porch. I spread his wing out and the sun shone through his feathers lighting them up the way it did when he was flying in the sky. I examined the enchanting markings on his chest and under his wings, some were heart-shaped, and some diamond-shaped, dark, rich brown against soft, snowy white.

I looked at his strong claws, about 3/4 of an inch long and curved, and his pretty yellow feet. And I felt just crushed that he had died. There was not a mark on him. No wounds. His body was soft, and his head flopped back so I had to cradle it when I picked him up.

I waited as the sun set for my husband to come home. He was just as upset as I was when he saw the beautiful bird.

I called a Native American friend we have here to see if he knew someone Native who would want the bird for sacred ceremony, but due to some medical issues he said he couldn't come and get the bird at this time. The closest person he knew, who could take it (legally), lived three hours away, so we weren't able to share the sacred bird with the People.

We went to where we used to have our garden out back and dug a hole three feet deep. Then collected four boughs from the yew bush and a dried hydrangea flower. I went into my studio and got some sage and loose tobacco, which I keep on hand for ceremony. And we laid the beautiful bird on the soft bed of branches and placed the dried hydrangea flower in with him. I sprinkled the sage and tobacco over him, and lifted one handful of earth to sprinkle in as well. Then Rob covered him with a blanket of soil. Back to the Earth. 

Thank you beautiful hawk for coming to me. Thank you for letting me look at you. 

I cried and cried. Wow I wasn't expecting all that pain of death to wash over me yet again. Rob gave me a long, tight hug.

Then I pictured Jess up in her Heaven with the hawk on her shoulder. 

And it was all right.

Peace.