You are predator, defined by what you eat
And how you singularly look for food,
Your every feature focused, unsubdued
To rightly seize the daily running meat:
Head down, tail flared and talons out for blood,
Lean muscles tensed and dinner in your eyes
With mercenary sense to recognize
Your victims from afar, and yet you would
Toll from your scythian beak a curling call
And let your ancient raptor’s feathers cast
Their moving shadow on the ground. We earthly
Creatures feel the shadow’s chill and pall
And all that it foretells; our hearts beat faster
Still as you pronounce our mortal worth.
You are pacifist, designed to fly above
The fray, to find your spirit in the sky
On wings extended and uplifting, high
Above the inevitable chaos of
Our gravity, beyond our battlegrounds
And burial grounds, intractable and free.
Your revolutions of serenity
Enlist us all to tarry out of bounds,
To turn aside from where we find ourselves
If only to appreciate the strength
Of heavenly peace and how you always seem
So far away from where you ought to be:
There you are, a predator at length,
And here are we, lost in our mortal dream.
from Thirty Birds
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