Such passion,
must be sex or territory,
the repeated piercing
screams coming from 
the hawk perched high
in the pine
with a pufffed-up breast.
He scolds in a belligerent cackle,
over and over
powerful enough
to make his authority known.

Then a squirrel appears squawking
on the same limb
and pushes him, drives him off–
home town advantage.

Hawk glides away screeching
then circling back–
the bravado
of one last dive,
one last bluff.