RDP Sunday: HAWK

Nowadays the alley behind my warehouse is an open wound that oozes trash and human waste and needles and the random chunks ts of garbage  that the homeless people throw down from the street above because that is what they do in Pioneer Square now because they can.

But a few years ago it was semi gross and you didn’t have to worry about catching a disease or getting rat bites if you cleaned it up now and then.

It was in that time frame that I went out to empty the trash one day an found the Hawk.

It had died and I suppose just fallen from the sky and landed next to my loading dock. At least, that’s what it looked like. His wings were spread like he was in mid flight and his head was turned to the side and his eye was looking up.

I had never seen a hawk close up and I saw that his feathers were tinged with gold, they did glow in the sunlight and his eye was bright and it shined. I always thought that those descriptions writers used about hawks were poetic license but nope. It was true.

So I stood there and decided that I needed to do something. I couldn’t leave it there, the crows and the rats hadn’t shown up yet. But I guessed as soon as they were convinced the Hawk wasn’t going to get up grab them and rip them to shreds they would move in. Not to mention what the cars would do to it.

So I got my gloves on and lifted it up and for just a brief second I considered throwing it in the dumpster. But when I saw that beautiful animal in my hands there was no way I could do that.

So I took him into my warehouse  and wrapped him up in one of my spare work shirts and put him in a box.

That night I took him home with me on the bus and I buried him in my herb garden next to my cat.

I have a list of things that I have done wrong in life and that list is LONG. But this thing that I did for that Hawks was not on that list.

amm