Third Runner-Up for Halloween Poetry: “Hawk” by Robin Witmer-Kline

Beckon me, oh beckon me
With your haunting cry
And with my eyes, I’ll follow thee
I’ll too, sprout wings and fly

Summon me, oh summon me
From Autumn skies to earth
And I shall soar vicariously
Fraternal twin, not birthed

Ascend the skies like Icarus
And leave the earth behind
Auspicious blessings, there, unknown
Most fortunate to find

To fly above the harvest fields
Absorb the colors brown,
From green, to red, to purple
Regalia and its crown

But flight without the proper wings
Is failure to behold
When freedom meets the sun and sea
As known from tales of old

I search my mind’s dependence
On Newton’s forceful law
For if I had a foolish mind,
In flight, I would not fall

Confined to earth, rotating sphere,
By rules that yoke and bind
Ethereal chains upon my feet
Not subject to the mind

So, Beckon me with hawkish myth
Far limited am I,
Forever forced upon this earth,
But in my mind, I FLY!

Dr. Robin Witmer-Kline, PhD, LPC is a full-time Assistant Professor of Psychology at Hagerstown Community College. She is also a licensed clinical psychotherapist in the state of Pennsylvania. Dr. Witmer-Kline earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Christian Psychology and combined her love of psychology and poetry for her dissertation in which she examined poetry therapy and faith’s combined effects on reminiscence, mood, cognition, and self-esteem in the elderly. She lives in Greencastle, Pennsylvania with her husband and extended family.

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