Common Birds 43 - Cooper's Hawk II
Wednesday, September 6
Until the Cooper’s hawk came, the day was long and slow as only these sweltering days when summer should be over can be. Chickadee flicked from branch to branch. Catbirds yowled. Distantly, I heard a nuthatch and waited for it to methodically make its way to me. But a Cooper’s hawk landed in the high canopy of a tree, drawing all attention to itself, pulling languidness out from under us, and pushing us into readiness by its looming potential for violence. A great objectification took place. The song birds were no longer themselves. All their various species and distinct personalities become amalgamated into a single entity: prey. The hawk was the lone subject. I imagine this is a great draw of being armed or calling out someone in public.
It’s hard to turn away from this potential violence. It has the singular power to transform a slow, hot day into the tense, beading sweat of a standoff, eyes twitching at the slightest change. Something similar happened a few weeks ago when potential violence was brutally actualized. I saw a peregrine falcon fall from the sky, the very scythe of Death. It singled out for destruction one mallard from a crowd of a dozen mallards, gulls, and cormorants. It was sublime in its speed and precision. When I was back at that walk a week later, all I did was wait for the falcon to return. I found a group of mallards, and I waited for them to be killed. In the shadow of the falcon, they weren’t ducks but sitting ducks, bait for me to catch a glimpse of the awesome peregrine.
I want to resist, however, the pull of potential violence. Do not resist an evil man. Jesus says this in the Sermon on the Mount: Do not resist an evil man. The Church has struggled with it ever since. I’m a Mennonite, so we take this teaching and others like it (turn the other cheek) very seriously. Though this hasn’t made the struggle easier. If anything, it makes me more aware of my own potential for violence. Because the first question you are asked when you say you’re committed to not resisting violence is always the same: what would you do when someone attacks your family? Now that I have a wife and son, I’m not sure that my theological commitments and the practical application would match. I’m afraid of myself sometimes when I think about what I would do for them.
All the same, I want to resist this pull. Potential violence demands that we pay attention, demands that mallards become meat, and nuthatches fall silent. Hawks, falcons, those who wield violence, they extort our attention, our minds, and our life. Peace makes no demands. Not resisting allows us to give our attention willingly to peace. So enough of red-tails and Cooper’s hawks. The hawk today never actually did anything exciting, violent or otherwise. And this whole time, I could have been talking about chickadees, who give and give and have never asked a thing of me.
