Buteo jamaicensis (Red-tailed Hawk) - J. Isaacs

Once in my kitchen you recounted 

looking out the art room window just in time

to see your kid (last bead on a string of children 

crossing the school yard) 

pointing up, head thrown back; 

you looked skyward too, privileged 

to share that glimpse 

of circling hawk, 

split-leveled moment caught

and passed in turn to me 

knowing I'd catch it because 

we fashioned stories like these

like knotting a carpet, or the painting 

you once accomplished with a pin -- 

uncountable tiny repeated pressings of point to paper -- 

press now, we cannot fully know 

each other's lives, our houses far apart, 

school-children fledged from the warm curled babies, 

press now, adults in care of whom 

I'll return to this poem decades later 

removing a dead name & pointing pronouns 

left behind in flight 

that were once attached 

to one of the swaddled bundles 

we held in other kitchens back 

when we began this pin-point, weaving tale

of moments gliding overhead 

visible only if we remember 

as your kid did, 

to look up.

Originally published by Lehigh Valley Literary Review, Vol 4, July 2008

Isaacs' poems have appeared in print in Painted Bride Quarterly, Mad Poets' Review, US 1 Worksheets, Friends Journal, and the Delaware Valley Poets anthology Thatchworks.  A Quaker, a Green, and a fluent Spanish speaker, after raising three daughters in Pennsylvania she founded and directed a county-wide immigrant rights organization providing legal support to undocumented community members threatened with detention and deportation. Since retiring to Maryland in 2022 she now reads, writes and birds on the banks of Wharf Creek off the Chesapeake Bay, living (with her husband of 35 years) four doors down from her parents.