Snow Storm Buzzard.
Within a swirling snowy blizzard
A buzzard, on up-turned wings,
Alive with frosting snow
Circles majestically above the rough pasture
Below the Edge. How he appeared to revel
In the wild winter landscape, the distant trees
Stark and skeletal, the sedge icy spikes,
The seeping springs black serpents in the gullies.
How he wheeled and soared and merged
With the landscape like some great moth
Leaving the comfort of its hidden world.
But this magnificent bird stalks death,
And in winter there is plenty.
The chill is deep and biting,
Harsh and cruel; even the air seems brittle.
Ever round, ever round, he turns the landscape
As if winding a toy. He mocks the storm
By embracing its malevolence,
Tearing the frozen silence with it talons.
Then he turns for the Edge and the moors,
To the vastness of the frozen earth.
But I know he will return,
For he is the hunter
The harvester of souls
The ever-present opportunist.
Peter James Allsop
“and so I thought:
ReplyDeletemaybe death
isn’t darkness, after all,
but so much light
wrapping itself around us—
as soft as feathers—
that we are instantly weary
of looking, and looking, and shut our eyes,
not without amazement,
and let ourselves be carried,
as through the translucence of mica,
to the river
that is without the least dapple or shadow—
that is nothing but light—scalding, aortal light—
in which we are washed and washed
out of our bones.
--White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field ”
― Mary Oliver