Peregrine

 




My most beloved bird, winter in your wings.

Storm-driven feathers, ice-gleaming eyes.

There is no summer softness in your plumage,

Just the barred echo of your nest site pylon.

 

Scything through clouds discoloured with rain, 

Black, slate-blue, the darkness flies.

Your beauty calls me with wails on the wind,

Ascending high, circling, dissolving in haze. 

 

Nothing temperate in your searing flight,

You, a hooded outlaw blazing with intent.

Brutal bone-chilling frost in your glacial stare,

Wings crisply held, scalpels slicing the air.

 

Your prey scatter like chaff you have winnowed,

A blizzard of panic under your gaze.

Slashing rain in your stoop, lance legs extended,

Their last sight on earth is your glittering glare.


Barbara Grafton 


Image copyright Barbara Grafton

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

For World Earth Day...

Image
  For World Earth Day Thursday 22 nd April 2021   The Earth Rights Act in Perpetuity Inspired by the Human Rights Act 1998   As a woman I have fundamental rights and freedoms which not only impact on my   life and death, they affect my everyday life: what I say and do, and my beliefs.   I believe that the earth belongs to me; that we belong to the earth.     We are the people of the earth.   We are the earth.   It is my duty to protect, preserve and to save from harm the living earth upon which I thrive. Here find an Act of Earth Rights given in Perpetuity.     The earth has the right to: the right to a nature-cycle freedom from torture and degrading treatment freedom from husbandry through slavery and forced labour the right to live free in the known universe the right to an eco-voice the right not to be punished for something for which it was not responsible the right to respect freedom of reflection, et
Read more

Getting Into a Scrape

Image
  Photo credit: Yuri Fadeev I’m six or seven, climbing trees in my garden with my best friend. We’re spoilt for choice, with apple trees, plum, cooking apple, and pear. The tied cottage that comes with my father’s farming job is nothing short of idyllic and belies the material poverty we live in. We are not nature poor, but I’m often reminded that money doesn’t grow on trees. It’s a hot day; we both wear shorts and t-shirts. The difficulty of rating each tree is varied and each of us has differing climbing capabilities. I am the youngest of three, and when I’m with my elder siblings I can only lay claim to climb the cooking apple tree. Why? According to them, they are more adept than me. Plus, with its low, wide branches, in some places it’s even easier to climb than a ladder . I’m not allowed to attempt their trees. The pear trees require much more skill, with the first branches at head height. This requires grasping a branch with both hands, followed by some fancy leg swinging
Read more

The Comfortable Silence

Image
Klemen Vrankar 'Tell me about your childhood.' they say. They will be disappointed, they always are, as there isn't much to tell. My childhood is a jumble of brief snippets of memory, tricks of the light, illusions of the mind. I try to remember more to please them, but all that remains is a patchwork of pain.    My father towers over me his arm raised 'Well what have you got to say for yourself?' Nothing, I can say nothing, words evade me as I am terrified into silence. One day I will tell him exactly what I think, but not yet, I am still too young to vocalise my thoughts effectively.   In the bath, I submerge myself beneath the water and feel the peace of the tepid silence that surrounds me, a different feeling to the silence commanded by my father. 'Children should be seen and not heard', one of his many doctrines that enforce my need to scream and shout in protest at the unfairness of the world. 'She could be so pretty if she stopped scowli
Read more