Blog 3:      (From my old memories)             Bilqees Shabbir

The article for blog 2 provided a good ‘food for thought’. It reminded me of an incident that happened with me almost 20 years ago. I had started my teaching career in a college and was teaching the poem to the undergrads. (The poem is attached). Those days the educational institutions were being monitored by ‘hawks’, and they were expected to pop in at any moment to observe the content and contexts of education. I started teaching and a ‘hawk’ appeared from nowhere, in the classroom. I remember the tapping of the heavy boots in the class but I was supposed to continue.

I was 23 then and was discussing the poem, pretending to ignore the presence of the ‘hawk’ in the class. (Who cares about the consequences, when one is young and unmarried…?) When I came to the staff-room, my experienced colleagues were worried about my future. I told my dad (who was also a prof.), he smiled and said: ‘that’s OK, you might get a notice but that’s fine’… After three days, I was called to the principal’s office. She handed me over an envelope and asked me to open it.

It read…

“I appreciate your straightforward comments on the text you were teaching. I realize that power is transitory…I’ve seen the hawks growing old and dying. I wish you luck in the years to come.”

I was moved, by the note. Now, after so many years I think, either the ‘academic bullies’ are more powerful than the ‘hawks’ or we need to work harder and with the stronger commitment?

(The Poem)

Hawk Roosting
I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

The convenience of the high trees!
The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth's face upward for my inspection.

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot

Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads -

The allotment of death.
For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:

The sun is behind me.
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.

Ted Hughes