Pennsylvania is apparently the road kill capital of the United States. Friday afternoon I was driving to Reading noticing the road kill, as usual. In a trip of less than twenty miles, I saw in various stages of decomposition a couple of deer, a possum, a skunk, a couple of cats, and a groundhog. Sometimes I notice how this decomposition process proceeds, as one memorable summer when I was driving to Kutztown for graduate school. A dead cat lay at the side of the road. Each day it got bigger and bigger, swelling as it rotted, looking like a balloon ready to pop. And on Friday I saw a deflated pelt at the side of the road. The pressure had gotten too great, and it exploded.
Now Friday's trip was memorable for a totally new form of road kill. As I drove, a sudden dark shadow crossed my field of vision from left to right, on a downward slant. As I registered that, the form rose up a few feet in front of the car — a red-tailed hawk. The beauty of the colors as the hawk rose in front of me was breathtaking. And clutched in its claws was a hapless mouse that had been in the tall grass at the side of the road. It was all over in seconds. The flash of color, the beauty and grace of that hawk have stayed with me for days.
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