BIRDS
Thank you to Kristen Lindquist of Camden, Maine, for permission to use as a reference her photographs of a merlin.
A 6-color reduction linocut
12" x 8" print size
15" x 11" paper size
Hand printed on BFK Rives paper
Edition: 10
Sold unframed
Price includes shipping within the U.S.
RITUAL EMBRACE
Of all the front stoops on Huntress Avenue,
why does this little hawk swoop
into mine?
I find her on my way home
from the gallery where my show
of linocut raptors hangs—all furiously alive.
I think one eye opens when I cradle her
in my red-fleece mittens. But, no.
This hawk is dead.
Her head lolls, neck broken,
lids gray over sunken sockets.
An immature sharp-shinned hawk,
smallest of the Accipiters,
between a robin and a crow.
White scallops articulate her brown back.
Dark bands define her tail. Yellow legs
dangle talons like talismans.
Alive, she was acrobatic,
raced through pine forests,
skimmed open fields,
keen huntress of small songbirds.
I carry her to a copse at the top
of our street. Leave her
in the crotch of a tree.
Leslie Moore
What Rough Beasts
Littoral Books, 2021