Beware the shrill of the Red-tailed Hawk

An antiwar poem

Awaiting the next war with 
     sad certainty,
I hear the shrills of the 
Red-tailed Hawks —
whose menacing cries
     often mistaken for
     the Bald Eagle's pride.

Sharpening their talons,
     they brew a kettle above,
     while building their nests 
          of steel and bone 
               in ruins below.

An unborn child, 
     not even a twinkle in 
     the hawk's focused eye —
doesn't yet even know 
     the wasteful way 
          he will die.