Good evening from the Suburban Prairie. Yeah, I'm not giving up on that. There will be the Thames Delta, and there will be the Suburban Prairie. Get used to it.
Having lived on the prairie my entire life the sight of a hawk on the wing is not a strange one. Yet . . . yet! I have never seen a hawk up close. Not in real life. Sure, in pictures and movies. But not before my very eyes.
Last week I was in the drive thru at Taco Bell, which is unfortunately a common thing for me. As I was waiting in line I saw a GIANT FUCKING THING glide down from the sky and land between bushes off to my right. It took me a moment to realize that it was a hawk. It looked as big as a Canadian goose. It was not fucking around. I watched it, fascinated as I always am by nature. I barely remember handing over my money and receiving my Crunchy Cheesy Core Burrito. I watched that fucker as closely as I could. Usually I eat my fast food on the road, but I decided to park as close to the hawk as I could without frightening it off, just so I could watch it and see what the fuck it was up to.
I parked at a close but respectable distance. It didn't get spooked. It sat still, not so much as turning its head. And then it pounced into a bush. A flock of sparrows fled for their lives. The bush rustled a lot, and the hawk emerged with its prize. It sat there right in front of me, like it knew I wanted a show, pecking at whatever it had caught. Then more birds flew into the bush, and the hawk went back to work. He's a doer. He doesn't wait for shit to come to him. He goes out and gets it.
Except this time the sparrows seemed to have outnumbered him. He took to wing. DIRECTLY FUCKING AT ME.
For a moment I could swear this fucking guy was going to dive-bomb my windshield. He wouldn't be the first bird to do this. But at the last second he pulled up, and I got the perfect view of an ascending hawk, mere inches from my face. If not for my car I could have reached up and snatched him from the sky.
But he would not have liked that. Nor would I, after he'd had his way with me.
I sat there with my heart beating, my mouth full of burrito. And then I realized, fuck, I should have had my camera. That would have been a wonderful shot.
But fuck that. This one's just for me. It's special. Sorry, folks. That's just the way it's got to be.
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