The Kill

The Kill

©Beth Surdut 2018

 

Fill a paper bag with a branch dressed in dry leaves.

Shake the bag hard, vigorously

That’s the sound of death wrestling with innocence.

On a day where heat drags at you like a demanding child,

The tree flapped and rustled

Leaves so dense, I saw only movement and the shadow of death in flight 

I opened the tall wooden gate and walked into the alley

over the shed from the bamboo

And the African sumac

And the tamarisk

and the dove feathers.

This is where the hawks bring their kill.

I heard the wingbeats

Saw the Cooper’s hawk fly away

without the baby dove's wing.

White-winged dove, killed two days before its sibling fledged

I returned to the tree

Where the mother and remaining baby huddled

Watching me.

The next day, the father joined them

And the day after that

The nest was empty.

White-winged dove nesting in a tamarisk tree--drawing by Beth Surdut