Doc Hawk
by Daniel
G.
Snethen
When I first met him,
I was so amazed.
He had a goatee and mustache
and so did I.
To me he belonged
in the Australian Outback.
Instead, he trudged through
the deserts and forested
mountain ranges of Idaho
In search of lizards,
butterflies, bats, flowers,
rodents, owls and hawks.
He especially loved ferruginous hawks.
I learned many things from him.
How to identify and leg-band birds,
how to ear-tag small mammals.
and how to noose a leopard lizard.
I even learned that, hypothetically,
a legless cheetah could run 10 mph
because of the flexibility of its backbone.
I patterned my teaching after him.
His classes were my favorite.
Mammalogy, ornithology,
plant taxonomy and wildlife management.
He was there at the Malheur
Wildlife Management Area
when I stuck a dead catfish in my mouth
for $2.00 worth of Atomic FireBalls.
He was there when I submerged
myself into 35° water
and got stuck in the deep mud
of a pond near McCall, Idaho
on yet another crazy bet.
He was there for my 21st birthday
on the 21st of May, 1986.
He was there whenever
I needed him to be there.
And now the time nears
as the sands of time
have nearly all dropped,
and my hero, my mentor,
one of the greatest men
I have ever known,
shall pass these Earthly confines.
But there is a new
wilderness awaiting
for him to explore.
And I hope, he will
make preparations
for the two of us
to walk together
through the deserts
and forested mountain
ranges of this new paradise
as we take in a Natural History
like none we have witnessed before.
Daniel G. Snethen is an educator, naturalist,
moviemaker, poet, and short story writer from South Dakota. He teaches on the
Pine Ridge Reservation at Little Wound High School in the heart of Indian
Country.
