Raptors

A river,
a bridge.
A hard faced hawk
over the water
as I passed.

A mountain-stone in Georgia.
Peregrines on updrafts
hovered six hundred feet above
the ground, ten feet off
the edge of the cliff
where I was standing.

Were those eagles, there
above me on a Portland street?
Were those buzzards above the field
down the road?

Do they ever touch down?
I only see them in trees and on
the wing.  Once, one carrying a snake
let it trail across my car’s hood
but if it came to ground I did not see.

And now the cries of this mated pair in the backyard —

will they come down?