The Dinner Party, The Marsh Hawk

While dining with assorted friends
and near friends
at a private dinner party,
Professor Alternate Jones,
“Al” for short,
announces to those of us
by nature or profession inclined
to listen to such things
that “upon reflection
on the things of this world,
the only right, righteous thing to do
is for me to spit, hard and often;
the taste otherwise is too rich
and I am so easily overwhelmed.”

Several at the table laughed
and offered similar cavalier thoughts,

but I stood up and sought and found
the view over the salt marsh, looked out
at a marsh hawk hovering, so still
over the tips of the yellow
shore grasses; saw it

taking everything in,
waiting for prey, waiting for
a sign of weakness, a flash
of motion arrested just long enough
for it to drop and rise
fulfilled, with a victory
in its talons.

I turned from the window
back to my friends and near friends,
back to the learned professor still talking,
my mouth drying up as I did so,
feeling the sharps so strongly
I had nothing to say.