What is the meaning of the final four lines—how true is the line that “to be wild” needs no explanation—and so by contrast, what does it...

In Stephen Dunn's poem, "Hawk," the poem seems generally
about the world of the hawk, pitted against the world of humans. The hawk moves by
instinct, but as with the clear glass window, the bird of prey "learns," as do people,
that things are not always what they seem:

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...what's clear can be
hard...

Could this not mean
(symbolically) that what seems obvious is not that at
all?

I am taken by the contrast between what the hawk
"loves" (the small birds) that is a "love" the small birds know (and I assume they could
live without: literally). However there are prices to be paid in the land of men and
creatures, and this brings us to the last four lines of the
poem.

The speaker
observes...

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...the unwritten
caption:

that to be wild

means
nothing you do or have done

needs to be
explained.

I see several
important elements in these last four lines. The first, most obvious, is that something
that is by nature, truly wild, need not explain itself. The hawk follows the rules of
nature: kill or be killed...the survival of the fittest. This is something people
understand. We may be saddened to see a defenseless creature die as it becomes another
animal's meal, but we understand this
code.

The "civilized" aspect of life,
with regard to the poem, is that we assume that if animals live a life in the wild and
act as animals, the opposite understanding is that civilization
should naturally rise above "wildness," as this is an integral part of what separates us
from the animals. So the author would seem to infer that
"civilized" people (men and women), by virtue of their elevated status on the "food
chain," should be prepared to answer for their actions and explain: thereby
not being wild.

The third element,
however, that I see in the poem, is the
reality—not the ideal. Ideally, an animal
follows the laws of the animal kingdom. Ideally, humans are
supposed to rise above the animal-like behavior seen in nature, as
we are elevated above the savagery of animals: this is our
code. The reality is that often what takes place in the world
of animals makes much more sense than that which happens in the world of "civilized
men," who use their knowledge and "sophistication" to subjugate other human beings and
destroy them, with no explanations forthcoming.

This begs
the question, then, as to who is more
civilized? The animal following the code of nature? Or the human who
should know better and follow the code of civilization—but does
not.