Robert Penn Warren's Evening Hawk

In Evening Hawk, Robert Penn Warren creates a mood of uncertainty as he comments on the passage of time. The passage of time is an inevitable process and despite all efforts everyone eventually dies. As humans, it is hard to understand this process and one cannot predict when their time is coming to an end. Ultimately, Warren uses diction, symbolism, and imagery in order to explore this concept and showcase the uncertainty it brings about.
In the first stanza of the poem, Warren uses vivid imagery to introduce the hawk into the landscape. The imagery of the hawk’s wings “dipping through the geometries and orchids that the sunset builds” signals that the day is coming to an end as the light turns to shadows. This darkness results from the hawk
Without reason, humans cannot fully grasp the ideas of time, life, and death, and uncertainty prevails. The remaining stanzas become very philosophical. The use of of the word “hieroglyphics” highlights the uncertainty, as it is an ancient and complex form of writing that is very hard to learn. In these hieroglyphics, however, the bat possesses ancient “wisdom”, which holds the truths the speaker wishes to learn of time, life, and death. These lines suggest that time is a complex subject and it is not likely that humanity will ever be able to fully understand it. In addition, the speaker points out that “if there were no wind we might, we think, hear the earth grind on its axis, or history drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar”. The imagery of the dripping pipe here works to show that time is slowly, but surely passing us by, and since it is only “dripping” and in a cellar, it is hard to notice unless the movement of the wind and the earth cease. With the progression of everyday life, humans are often oblivious to the passage of the time. Eventually, however, “the hawk comes” and takes it toll, and there is nothing we can do about it but