‘The Hawk and the Handsaw’

When the wind is Southerly, I know a Hauke from a hand saw
                                                                            –Hamlet

Spring is the season for writers—and so are the other three.
A Hawk is a bird of predation, and makes a good simile
For that seizing of life at its meaning—that constitutes Art
And why would a Hawk need a Handsaw? That’s the craftspersonly part.
It’s for cutting a line free of verbiage, when verbiage hath grown o’erblown.
A Hawk needs a wrench for syntax, when out a line’s back been has thrown.
An Authorial Hawk plots with carpenter’s chalk, spirals of falconish flight.
The Haiku Hawk wields the fire and the wok geared to the searing bite.
Hawk vessels of art need injections of caulk to sail fictional seas aright.
A Hawk is a bird of portent, of Zeus-like insinuation.
The SIGNAL is adding Lit’rary Arts to its on-line publication.

A Concluding Hortatory Cheer
Arise and squawk, O fabled Hawk
‘Til the Muses gape and the Graces gawk
Avoid cliché, but . . . walk the walk
Ever onward, never balk
For you make Magic out of Talk.

Contributed by: John Gorman, retired professor of literature