Red-Tailed Hawk and Field Mouse and Other Poems and Photography

by Elizabeth Houseman

All photography by Elizabeth Houseman

RED-TAILED HAWK AND FIELD MOUSE

Look how smoothly she sweeps

down, talons stretching,

her next meal there to pluck.

Watch how, despite the rodent’s struggling,

writhing back and forth and tail whipping,

still with ease her wings beat.

Observe how nature circles,

birth and growth and living and dying,

and how by this all we pass

as if entire lifespans weren’t thriving

right above our eyes.

CENTIPEDE

Pitter-patter raindrops slowly start to fall.
Moss, damp, dark is where I go to crawl.

Many legs of mine pitter-patter too,
as this big wet forest I find my way through.

No, you would not notice me down on the ground.
You likely would not see me, and I do not make a sound.

I scatter from the waters, for I do not wish to drown
in an itty-bitty raindrop, sprinkling softly down.

A canopy of crinkly leaves is where I find my way.
You’d step right over top of me, so this is where I’ll stay.

I swear my world is just as rich, if you’d just look around.
The forest floor is plenty full for a centipede on the ground.

ELIZABETH HOUSEMAN

Elizabeth Houseman is a reader, writer, Christian, wife, and mom living in coldhearted Michigan. She has work featured in La Piccioletta Barca, Critical Read, The Way Back to Ourselves, and elsewhere. When she isn’t obsessively writing, she works as a freelance photographer.

You can find her on Instagram and Threads at @bethyhouseman.