Hi, Susan!
I like the theme, as my 5'11" younger daughter seems to have landed herself a 5'4" keeper.
I have trouble turning the clichés "beyond their ken" and "beneath their notice" into "beneath their ken." I see the haughtiness and dismissal, but can't quite parse the exact literal meaning.
I also struggle with "They too know how hawks scrutinize a wren." I think "wren" has such strong feminine associations that for me there is an implied sexual predation in the metaphor that doesn't mesh tidily with the notion of short men's having experienced the same kind of gaze that short women might experience from tall(er) men. Although women and gay men can certainly be hawklike and predatory, too, I assume that on the receiving end of such attentions, the horror is somewhat different for people who can't get pregnant.
Since the ending returns (in a more telly way) to the topic of empathy, perhaps the hawk/wren illustration of empathy here can be replaced with something more related to the wittiness mentioned in the next line, like
As chiltepin outspices long cayenne,
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