Chicken
Hawk
A Word Picture
Sonny
Vergara
It
was a dark brown spot at the edge of the field that caught his
eye as he made long soaring turns at two hundred feet in and out
of the morning updrafts. The sun had been bright for some time
now and he was hungry. Except for a few locusts, he had not eaten
for several hours. Just about anything that might qualify as a
meal was getting a second, closer look. Noting the small form
below, he started a slow gliding turn, angling his fully extended
wings almost imperceptibly as he slipped off the cusp of a warm
rising current. He raised his head and slightly lowered his legs,
increasing the angle of his body against the ambient wind. His
heart rate quickened. As his forward speed slowed, the feathers
atop his wings began to flip loosely in the stalling air. He came
to a stationary hover, fluttering his wings rapidly in order to
retarget his prey. The trajectory he would need to follow was
instinctive, automatic, without error. Then, he rolled and dropped
almost a hundred feet in a vertical swoop from a liquid clear
sky toward the small lump nibbling in the tall grass, unaware.
The attack, executed with instinctive precision, was silent, sudden,
and violent. There was no time for an alarm or even a shriek as
three talons, two from one side, one from the other, pierced the
heart of the unsuspecting animal, ripping him, dead, in a stir
of dust and sand from the earth where he had lived.
***
Sonny
Vergara is a native of Florida. His father was from Ecuador
and his mother from Soperton, Georgia. He speaks the language
of his mother--Southern. He is presently retired. Sonny and his
wife grow muscadine grapes, make wine, and worry about relevancy
in a changing world.
©
Sonny Vergara