I showed up at the wildlife centre one day, after a long day of birding in the wet spring sun. My hair was a disaster, my face streaked with sweat and dirt. My clothes were covered in mud and I had a hawk in a box.

I’d found her hopping along the side of the highway, unable to fly. It was easy enough to come up behind her and capture her in the long grass with a cardboard box. I took her straight to the wildlife centre and they named her after me. She never did fully recover from her injuries, which we assumed were from being hit by a car, but she lived out the rest of her life there and seemed content.

gazing through the glass
she remembers
dreams of flight

Sally, the Red-Tailed Hawk, looking out the window on a rainy day

Copyrighted © by Sally Quon. All rights reserved.
Photograph appears here with her permission.

 

Publisher’s Note:

The prose poem within the haibun above is an excerpt from “Do You See What I See?” in the poet’s blog, Featherstone Creative (17 January 2021); appears here with her permission. And she created the haiku especially for MacQ.

Sally Quon

is a back-country blogger, dirt-road diva, and teller of tales. She is an associate member of the League of Canadian Poets, whose work was recently published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Forgiveness Fix and was long listed for the Vallum Chapbook Award. Her photography has appeared in Canadian Geographic Magazine and in Nature Alberta’s various birding brochures. One of her photos was chosen for inclusion in the Photographer’s Forum “Best of 2018” Collection.

Author’s blog: Featherstone Creative