Alice Konyves
February 5, 2003

I was driving, on my way to my Pilates exercise class and as I made one of the turns, in the middle of the roadway about a hundred yards away I saw two dead animals. As I came closer I realized that the bodies were of a hawk and a dove. Instant grieving came over me especially when I saw the magnificent size and feathers of the hawk.

Having just listened to the speech of the Secretary of State Colin Powell evidencing Iraq's weapons capabilities and now seeing a dead hawk and dove took a hold of my mind, heart and spirit.

On the way back from the exercise class the hawk and the dove were still in the middle of the street, everyone carefully driving around them. Oddly enough there were no crows around picking at the bodies.

I parked my car at the curb, got out and took a paper shopping bag from my trunk and a plastic windshield scraper. Looked around saw no one and no cars were coming from either direction. I walked over to the birds, both were dead, the dove had a little blood around his neck and the hawk had a broken neck. In pursuit while the hawk managed to kill the dove he must have flown into something breaking his own neck. The hunter and the hunted both dead, side by side. I placed the birds in the shopping bag, into my trunk and I left noting that not a single car came by while I was doing this. I knew what I had to do and as I was driving the ceremony unfolded in my mind and permeated my entire existence.

(Cont.)