Every once in a while, I glance out the window and spot the neighborhood hawk. I don’t know if it lives in the neighborhood, to be honest, but I like to think of it that way, as the neighborhood hawk. As though our neighborhood is gifted, in a way. But hawks probably have larger neighborhoods than we do, I’d guess. It’s certainly not bounded by a zip code, in any case.
As I watch it, I like to think this is the same hawk who has come by occasionally since I moved here. The same one I saw a few years ago eating lunch on a telephone post in the backyard, the guts of what looked like a chicken clinging to its beak, blood glistening in the Los Angeles sun.
When the hawk comes around, it grabs my attention in full. I watch it as it circles the house, wondering what it thinks as it looks down on me. That creature is too big, but I could take it. I just don’t want to, I bet. Or something like that. I wonder if it sizes up the neighbors who walk their small dogs differently than it does me. Does the hawk look at us like protectors of these small creatures or competition? That creature has caught the smaller one with its stringy appendage, it might think, and is dragging it home to eat. But in that scenario it’s hard to say whether the dog or the person is the predator. Maybe the hawk doesn’t know either.
Eventually, it moves along, taking my attention with it.
Currently reading: The Stand by Stephen King
Currently watching: Evil
Recently watched: Johnny Mnemonic (⭐️⭐️⭐️), She Dies Tomorrow (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Currently listening: The Avalanches We Will Always Love You, Lee Paradise The Fink