The land beneath him was filmed with salt

 The land beneath him was filmed with salt: grass-seed, insect, bird - nothing could thrive here. 

Ans. Introduction: These lines have been taken from the poem "Hawk" written by Keki N Daruwalla. This poem has been taken from the The Keeper oj ine Dead published in 1982. Throughout the poem the poet has used 'he' for the hawk giving it a kind of human identity. Explanation: In the above lines, the wild hawk, a powerful bird of prey, is seen hunting of other birds in the morning. It has speed.

When it flies up in the sky it seems to drill a hole into it. Then we are made to see the world as appears to the hawk from the height. To him the land seems covered with a thin film of salt. Similarly, when the hawk is prowling about in the sky, no 'grass-seed, insect, bird' can thrive. We are told that this hawk is driven by hatred which is like the burning fuse of a bomb ready to go off. Comments: Most of the poems have a single voice but 'Hawk' has two voices: one of the narrator and the other of the hawk.