Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

N. Scott Momaday’s "Buteo Regalis" is a vivid, tightly focused poem that captures a moment of predation in the natural world—the silent but inevitable descent of a hawk upon its prey. The title refers to the Ferruginous Hawk (Buteo regalis), one of the largest North American hawks, known for its powerful flight and striking white and rust-colored plumage. Through precise imagery and controlled pacing, Momaday crafts a moment of suspended tension, where the rodent’s fleeting awareness contrasts with the hawk’s unstoppable momentum.

The poem begins from the perspective of the prey: “His frailty discrete, the rodent turns, looks.” The word frailty immediately establishes the imbalance of power between predator and prey, while discrete suggests both the rodent’s smallness and its attempt to remain unnoticed. The phrase turns, looks conveys hesitation, awareness, and perhaps a moment of realization. This introduces the central question of the stanza: What sense first warns? The inquiry suggests the depth of the rodent’s vulnerability—it is not a matter of if but when it perceives the presence of the hunter. The phrasing also suggests that danger, in this moment, is almost unknowable, as though the rodent is already too late in its recognition.

The poem then shifts to the hawk, an unseen but imminent force: “The winging is unheard, / Unseen but as distant motion made whole.” The description of the hawk as winging rather than simply flying suggests a state of continuous movement, an effortless mastery of the sky. Its approach is silent, imperceptible until it coalesces into distant motion made whole. The phrase suggests that the hawk is not merely seen in fragments—flashes of movement against the sky—but as an integrated, singular presence. This is not the erratic, fluttering motion of a smaller bird but the slow, deliberate glide of a powerful raptor.

Momaday’s next lines reinforce the hawk’s absolute control of its flight: “Singular, slow, unbroken in its glide.” The alliteration of singular, slow emphasizes the hawk’s measured, controlled descent, while unbroken signals the unwavering nature of its trajectory. The reader, like the rodent, perceives the slow inevitability of the predator’s approach. This is not a sudden attack but a precise, calculated movement that unfolds over time.

At the moment of change, the hawk adjusts its course: “It veers, and veering, tilts broad-surfaced wings.” The doubling of veers, and veering reinforces the deliberation of the movement, emphasizing how the hawk is constantly recalibrating, adjusting with precision. The phrase tilts broad-surfaced wings draws attention to the hawk’s wingspan, an adaptation that allows it to glide effortlessly before executing its dive.

The next lines mark the transition from observation to action: “Aligned, the span bends to begin the dive / And falls, alternately white and russet.” The use of aligned suggests a moment of perfect positioning—everything in place, the hawk’s instincts and physics working in harmony. The phrase bends to begin the dive mirrors the way raptors tuck their wings slightly before plunging downward. The motion, far from chaotic, is one of graceful precision.

The visual detail of alternately white and russet highlights the distinctive plumage of the Buteo regalis, as the hawk’s body twists in descent. These flashes of color—one moment white, the next rust-colored—animate the hawk’s movement, almost as if the bird flickers between states, both seen and unseen in rapid motion.

The final line, “Angle and curve, gathering momentum,” reinforces the controlled power of the dive. Angle and curve contrast with each other—one sharp, one smooth—suggesting the interplay between rigidity and fluidity in the hawk’s movement. The phrase gathering momentum signals the imminent conclusion of the hunt; gravity and intent merge as the hawk accelerates, drawing the poem toward its silent, inevitable conclusion.

Momaday’s "Buteo Regalis" is a masterful rendering of predation, capturing both the rodent’s brief, instinctual awareness and the hawk’s unrelenting control over the moment. The poem’s controlled syntax mirrors the deliberate, aerodynamic precision of the hawk, while the shift from the rodent’s fragile perspective to the hawk’s graceful power creates an inescapable tension. The absence of explicit violence—no mention of the strike, the impact, the capture—reinforces the poem’s focus on inevitability rather than brutality. In the world of the hawk, death is not an act of aggression, but a function of order, precision, and flight.

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