He stepped out on a cross timber and stretched out his wings majestically to take in the sun and the day. The sun pierced through his red wings, making them even more shocking with color. He pointed an eye at me and left it there for me to watch. “I’ll take that stare from you with pride, bold Icarus; I’m only honored that you even venture to jet me a glance–good morning!”
“I buried your brother, you know; you would have served well to treat him better, brother Red!” He blinked. Mama-Hawk glided above. I snapped frames with my photo permit-less camera. Alas, yet another transgression that would go un-punished way out here in the hinter Earth.
“Well, I had better not miss another day of visits; this kid is ready to jump the nest and fly the coop, perhaps even this very week,” I did think.
And the next time I did return I quickly spied Mama-Hawk statued upon a remote pole, not at all near the nest… on the other side of the road from the nest even. Perhaps she was trying to coax her young-un to fly to her? I proceeded to the nest cautiously. “Ahhh, this same suspense day after day; it cuts like your grandmama’s tongue, you know?”
The nest was empty, yes. “Well shit!” I sulked as I drove my usual look around the pole. I stopped for a moment to reflect. Looking up at the empty twig bowl, I though of how their fuzzy white heads used to peek over the edge of the nest and track me as I cruised by.
A movement to my flank startled the daylight out of me! Looking down at the base of the pole, I met none other than brother Icarus, just then hopping over his brother’s grave. His right foot was not at all right. I had never noticed it before. It was curled and deformed into a ball. His right wing was broken, which he dragged on the ground behind him. I stepped out of my truck and toward brother hawk, but he hopped painfully away from me.
Mama-Hawk, knowing that her boy was crippled, had kicked him from the nest before he was ready to fly, his fragile wing was broken by the fall.
I announced all the curse words I have ever know, as I jumped into my truck and sped away, back to Mercury to have audience with the white-man-clan. I went immediately to the office of Environmental Safety, to the department for the care of flora and fauna, and told them the story of the hawks. “There is nothing we can do, or are allowed to do,” was their answer. “Well fuck me runnin’ in the rain in Rio; that pretty much sucks by the numbers,” my response.
I imagined vainly that they may have had some rescue service that could take the hawk in and grace it with recovery. What was I thinking? I have had more than my fair dose of the real world. In that world things die in numbers, and for no reason, or for all the wrong reasons. That’s just the way it is; it’s that way really, in the real world.
Ninety miles from Mercury, Nelly was just leaving hyperspace and cruising to a crawl in the length of over a mile and a half. I made my last left turn onto the fire break where perched on the peg was the branch bowl, empty still. I cruised slowly and stopped the truck, cutting the engine.
I stepped out and looked around. I walked around and through the sage, looking on. I made small circles around my truck that spiraled outward to cover more ground. I finally heard a rustling of sage and saw that behind me the young Icarus was hopping madly toward my truck, dragging his wing and his foot along. He hopped directly under my truck where he remained.
I understood at once that he was crazed by thirst and the stress dying, more so maddened by overheating in the blazing sun all day, no way of helping himself, no shade for an eternity, only knee-high sage. There, he traded the heat from the engine of my truck, for the assuage of the shade of its undercarriage. Icarus would suffer unimaginably to the last instant of a bitter end. He would succumb to the same fate as Icarus of Greek Lore, overly exposed to the merciless rays of the sun. There is no mercy or quarter shown in nature. A thing will die in pain and alone, as sure as it ever lived.
But now, this Icarus, this hawk brother, would die quickly and without suffering; he would die in the shade of my truck with his awl-sharp beak dipped in a shallow dish of water, Mama-Hawk high nearby, grieving the dual stings of her lost sons, eyes fixed on the horizon. She would leave and come again, most likely next June, to this same nest to try to gift us with some other fuzzy-headed siblings.
I scooped and let some cool water from my bottle dribble on top of Icarus’ blood-red head. I was reminded of an oath we all once took as Delta brethren: “In the end, we may not be able to save each other, but at a very minimum, we promise we will not let each other die alone.”
And brother hawk let go.
Nelly pulled away from the fire break, making one last right turn onto the two-lane DOT divided highway, accelerating to light speed toward sleepy wingless Mercury, the last bastion of the daring white man. Behind her she left at the base of the pole perch, under the woven twig cradle, a slight mound with a wooden crucifix imbedded. On the wood was scrawled: “Here Lie Two Red-Tailed Hawk Brothers Who Died TOGETHER.”
I’ll hope to see Mama-Hawk next June; I might see her… but hoo knows?
Rocks a shallow wooden cradle
lifted high above the rocks
Raised away from nature’s folly
broods there tiny baby hawks
Left alone to wing their fancy
test their will above the brush
heated struggle in the clan he
plunged below in mortal hush
Son’s arrive at times imperfect
marred by nature’s callus curse
Wrought in twisted limb or defect
life void but for waiting hurst
Left by Matriarch to perish
at the whim of Mamere Earth
Decline moribund nightmarish
gifting hawk his final berth
geo sends
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