THE HAWK a poem by Laura Stamps Lightning stipples the evening as thunderstorms grumble across the midlands, Hurricane Frances twirling toward the Bahamas, only four days away from the States. I place the bowls beneath a sumac bush to protect the food from intermittent showers and the kittens from a hawk whirling up from the starless pockets of the forest. Hawks are rare visitors in the neighborhood, and at twilight I’m shocked to find this sly hunter chasing a crow in the sideyard, both birds the size of adult cats, sleek, agile, shrieking like banshees as they race through the air. I sneak around the corner of the house to see if the hawk will venture into the pinewoods after the kittens, but at that moment the crow escapes, wheeling in reverse through the rain like a dark cyclone, passing so close to me I can feel the heat of its wings. Another step forward, and we would have collided on this drizzled night, the hawk scaling the treeline now, the kittens safe beneath a fortress of pine, while I stand in damp grass, pressing my hand to my heart, my breath a startled bird diving from my chest into the lilac rapids of this turbulent sky.