The poem begins with the speaker trying to visually capture the flight of the hawk through the sun-streaked sky at the close of day. The “hawk comes” (Line 6), its “wings dipping through [...] the sunset” (Lines 1-2). The bird glides between the geometric shapes of shadows cast into relief by the soft violet color of the sky. The dark triangular shapes of the “mountain” (Line 20), its “peak (Line 3), the “pines” (Line 5) as well as the deep “gorge” (Line 5) are contrasted by the purpling clouds that bloom like “orchids” (Line 2) in curved petals. The bird is “riding / [t]he last tumultuous avalanche of / [l]ight” (Lines 3-5), an image that suggests that the hawk deliberately follows the final burst of the sun’s brightness before it disappears into the night.

Although this description denotes the realistic movements of the bird against the changing light of twilight, the speaker’s choice of words gives the reader a sense of deeper foreboding, preparing us for understanding the bird’s flight as a deeper metaphor. The bird seems to have splintered off from the “peak’s black angularity” (Line 3) to fly above the “guttural gorge” (Line 5) as a harbinger of dark things to come.