Today at Benjamins Cottage, I saw a sparrowhawk through the conservatory and managed to get a picture from our upstairs window. Though in a tame garden environment, the bird recalled to mind the poem by Ted Hughes from wilder scenes.It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot
In our post-enlightenment western civilisation we have indeed tried to hold creation in our grasp. The poem demonstrates that this must be seen, in the end, as a thoroughly misguided pride. In the process, the civilised values of human life that give it significance have been forgotten. Man in our times is driven by mad impulses and obsessions.
Still, my hawk looked benign, though a little preoccupied.
Hawk Roosting
Ted Hughes (1930 - 1998)
I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.
The convenience of the high trees!
The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth's face upward for my inspection.
My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot
Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads -
The allotment of death.
For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:
The sun is behind me.
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.
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Published 1960
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Published 1960
