All hail to the Seattle Seahawks for their stupendous Super Bowl victory. As I watched them dismantle my beloved Peyton Manning, I felt like the ground prey for another kind of aquatic hawk, this one described by Mary Oliver.
Marsh Hawks
In the morning they glide
just above the rough plush
of the marshlands,
as though on leashes,
long-tailed and with
yard-wide wings
tipped upward, like
dark Vs; then they suddenly fall
in response to their wish,
which is always the same–
to succeed again and again.
What they eat
is neither fruit nor grain,
what they cry out
is sharper than a sharp word.
At night they don’t exist, except
in our dreams, where they fly
like mad things, unleashed
and endlessly hungry.
But in the day
they are always there gliding
and when they descend to the marsh
they are swift, and then so quiet
they could be anything–
a rock, an uprise of earth,
a scrap of fallen tree,
a patch of flowers
casting their whirling shadow.
I don’t know that they Seahawks could ever have been described as quiet. Marshawn Lynch maybe. But swift, yes. They certainly cast their whirling shadow on Bronco fans. In my dreams they fly like mad things, unleashed and endlessly hungry.
