The other day on my way back to the house with the mail, I noticed a hawk high in a big hemlock, a grand silhouette against the clear blue winter sky. Except for an occasional slow turning of the head, it was motionless, perched in the bright sun with what I imagined was elegance and dignity. The cold winter silence, with a majestic bird high above, created an instant of serenity and calmness, a sudden contrast to the exhausting jangle of thoughts that have become routine for us this winter, thoughts of Washington D.C. and Fulton County and Minneapolis. A red-tailed hawk perched high in a tree must certainly be oblivious to all human troubles, and for a moment, I wondered which of us was better off.

Hawks surely have no interest in distinguishing between a truth-teller and a liar, between compassion and hatred, or kindness and cruelty. Pettiness and vanity and duplicity are words that humans have invented to describe their own behaviors and they have no place in the world of hawks. They do not experience treachery or betrayal, or what Tennessee Williams so bitterly called “the strong odor of mendacity,” and although the lives of hawks are violent and deadly, they are not dishonorable.

I watched it for a while, but it didn’t stay long. It soon spread its great wings and drifted up, gliding out across the snow-covered field into a long line of trees far off to the west, where it disappeared. I watched it fly, pleased to have enjoyed a brief respite from the persistent images of heavily armed men wearing masks, dragging U.S. citizens from their cars and breaking down doors, pushing people into the snow, brandishing their pepper spray and tear gas and guns. In this long winter of 2026, we are haunted by those images, and by names and faces in the news that we cannot escape, names like Renee Good and Alex Pretti, casualties who are mourned and will be remembered. But we also are flooded with other names, those of our so-called leaders in Congress, Cabinet, and White House, men and women who have earned their infamous, cowardly reputations, names and faces and voices that bring to mind only fear and shame and despair. They are constant reminders of what we are losing and what we have already lost.

As I write this the bad news continues, a craven proposal to rename an airport and a train station, and the despicable Lion King video, two more items to add to a vast catalog of disappointments. To say that we deserve better from our government is a staggering
understatement. Bird watching, of course, is not a true remedy for any of this, but still, I’ll
be on the lookout for that hawk. I would like to see it again.

Greg Tuleja lives in Southampton.