I went at mid-morning round the house

To drive the hornets with a spray,

And there, beyond the eaves

   In soaring silhouettes

I saw the hawks.

I remembered how hawks, lazy in the sky

   Like prowl cars

Uncoop their powers in sudden shock

Against the lark,

Against the fragile moment of the lark.

   Or

    How the feathered blur of sparrows,

In the face of claws

   And the talon-sweep of wings,

Would flutter from the skies.

“Oh there is beauty in your brawn-winged arc

   and roll –

your talon-terror tearing of the sky,

though you do not know the beauty,

   or the

   dying.

But earth-bound, in thought-flight only,

Clay-caught and kept,

We know too well the lark-sound of life

   We have erased.

We know too well the doves

Who cried against the night,

Calling in their terror,

To tell us how that talon-motion

   Echoes in our hearts.”