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Come trace a wingtip on a surging shore Crag and cay and islet wave o'er-rushed Watch the earth draining into bays Under flats spanned by terns meander Rippled valleys in silts and umbers green Come plunge down forest crevasse Where the surprise and gem of water falling clean In one perpending view returns sunshine We may settle through the dappled air To a grassy aisle by a riven dene And the sweet grass by a river's edge A butterfly alights on a chosen flower Under the sudden still machine Bees hum in hundreds mid buttercup and clover and stipplings of petals remark the sky krm |
Riding the rolling wind on a levered wing in three clear plumes ending,
The White Gull eyed at me a far-ranged conning glimpse and spake: I ken a lonely shore too far in heavy wind for men to wander Thrust into the full south-eastern blast twixt misting headlands framed. Scantly dressed in thin salt grasses this dune defends a league-wide marsh whereon the wild sea plies ceaseless in patterned foam and spray perusing weedy banks, dank thatch, and weathered wood. Dive headlong o'er the cliff And course low the length of beach and rolling brine along And then rise with the wind against the far wall aloft, aloft, and slow to wheel softly on a sun-bright wing. Here see history in mirages far out to sea and on shore in fragments tide-piled and o'er-vined; shadowy ships of greedy tribes slithering shoreward To clash with lance or germ or steel or shot. And look, a clump of dried feather and closed eye, a twigged claw half-showing in the sand: my brother, a fellow flyer like you and me.
The Brown Hawk
On sturdy broad pinions to lift her load homeward said: Deep inland the mountain range sunward stands still thick in forest. Here lie my eyrie and my kin. From below the forest inlay, clean water pouring in a granite bed angles back a glance of starlight and marks the place. Come and breathe, before they reap the timber and delve for ore and build paved condominia with fine views, a drug-store, a grocer and motored trash recovery and strew air and soil with many-faced molecules.
Follow, quoth Black Crow on a thin wing's stealthy splay,
the valley verges where the water widens in a playful pool. Quiet your singing engine, pause and leave your craft. Between the painted land and air lay your belly in the mead and find A red berry in the straw; push a red tongue And lap it to your thirsty throat: taste of our earth. The time of flight and taste is prayer. |