The Missing Flight
The skies were yellowed by the haze
throughout that year's September days.
And the winds we love to have across
the ridges so the air'll be tossed
Upward to lift the soaring bird
had not the strength to be barely heard.
Still the air did rise in columns strong
Giving mighty boost to that transient throng.
Too far and wide these columns rose
to relieve the watchers anguished throes.
At each day's end they would muse and ponder:
Will the morrow bring a scene of wonder?
Still the watchers stood at their vantage point,
sunburned and bitten and on aching joint,
Searching high and low thru the hazy skies
with nothing to show for their reddened eyes.
They were searching with desperate wont
for hawks that were moving on a long broad front.
They came not in kettles nor fabulous streams.
They came not at all, at least, now it seems.
But of course, they flew in a host near equal
To the year before and some future sequel.
That's how it was in '83
when we learned there is no guarantee
that the hawks would fly on a constant route
in their wintering ground pursuit.
And, in case this lesson went by unheeded,
in '84 and '85, we saw it repeated.
Dave Holt
circa 1986
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