Top Highlights

• a hawk is given the power of speech and thought, allowing the reader to imagine what it's like to inhabit the instincts, attitudes, and behaviors of such a creature.
• violence, in the hawk's world at least, is not some kind of moral wrong—but a part of nature.
• personified as having the powers of conscious thought and a command of English.
• What the hawk lacks, however, are human qualities like mercy and remorse: it is ruthless and direct in its thoughts about hunting prey, though this violence is presented matter-of-factly, as simply part of who the hawk is. Imagining what goes on in the mind of the hawk facilitates a deeper meditation about nature, which the poem presents as both ma...
• It rejects human understanding and morality, claiming that it has no need for “falsifying dream[s]” or “sophistry.”

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