I had a dream last night where I was looking out the kitchen window into the backyard. It was our kitchen window and the backyard was roughly our backyard. But there was a hawk in it, and the hawk was watching a squirrel.

The squirrel was foraging around a stump that’s not really there, a short stump in rich brown soil with a few ferns growing around it. The hawk watched from a low metal post a few feet away.

It was a magnificent bird, larger than any of our local hawks, and its beauty was greatly heightened. Its breast glowed white with streaks of cinnamon and its wings and beak looked immeasurably strong. It didn’t take its eyes off the squirrel.

Gradually, the squirrel became aware of the hawk. But instead of running away, it skittered up onto the stump, where it stood on its hind legs staring at the hawk. It was mesmerized.

Watching out the window, I knew what was going to happen.

The hawk didn’t move. But a crest slowly started rising on its head, feathers no hawk has, white with brown and grey barring, an eye of scarlet toward the end like the eye in a peacock’s feather. It was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.

Suddenly the hawk arrowed toward the squirrel. I pounded on the window far too late to stop anything, and saw my hand hitting the glass three times.

When I looked outside again, the hawk was eating the squirrel, which lay stretched out and bloody on the stump.

Oh well, I thought in my dream. The hawk has to eat. The hawk has to live, too.

I knew the hawk was everything strong and beautiful and primeval. It was the earth, and it was going to prevail.