A Poem by Tom Sheehan

Hawk, Poised

World-viewed incandescence; sun under his wings with last quick volley,

slipping through a hole in the sky, lilting the soon-gray aura without a sound,
an evening hawk appears above us. From Yesterday he comes, from Far
Mountains only Time lets go of. Under wings steady as scissors a thermal
gathers, not sure the joy is ours, or his. It flings him a David-stone, racing
the Time-catch at heart, at our throats. There is so much light falling down
from him, from wing capture, we feel prostrate. To look in his eye

would bring back volcano, fire in the sky, a view of the Earth Earth has not

seen yet. In apt darkness chasing him, in the mountains where gorge, lake
and river give up daylight with deep regret, his shadow hangs itself forever,
the evening hawk sliding mute as a mountain climber at his work, leaving in
our path the next hiker’s quick silence, stunned breath, the look upward on
a frozen eye and a drifting wing caught forever only by light

Tom Sheehan served in the 31^st Infantry Regiment, Korea 1951 and graduated from Boston College in 1956. His books are Epic Cures; Brief Cases, Short Spans; A Collection of Friends; From the Quickening. He has 20 Pushcart nominations, and 330 stories on Rope and Wire Magazine. Recent eBooks from Milspeak Publishers include Korean Echoes, 2011, nominated for a Distinguished Military Award and The Westering, 2012, nominated for a National Book Award. His newest eBook, from DanseMacabre/Lazarus/Anvil, 2013, is Murder at the Forum, an NHL mystery novel, with two more mysteries due for 2013 publication, Death of a Lottery Foe and Death by Punishment. His work is in Rosebud (6^th issue), The Linnet’s Wings (6^th issue), Ocean Magazine (8^th issue), and many internet sites and print magazines/anthologies.