The Hunting Hawk

I have been working on this poem for a while. A year or so I was visiting the Valley of Rocks in North Devon when I saw a sparrowhawk sitting on a crag amidst the rocks, then he took off and whirled away over the cliff tops and into the sunset.



The Hunting Hawk.


This is my sky, his cry seemed to say,
And I am the master of all I survey,
As upon the highest crag he perched,
The sky itself seemed his church,
For atop that simple throne of stone,
He committed no crimes to atone,
For what need of he for laws and gods,
Those chains that tie us to the sod,
For he is free as lightning, fleet as fire,
Blessed as he rode the rain rushed gyres.

The whistling winds beneath those wings,
Will never condemn or shame with sins,
The savage desires that fill his soul,
For only we tarnish, whilst he is gold,
The simple sorcery of his ascensions,
Were a magic beyond my comprehension,
And the blood that ran into that beak,
As precious as a sermon for the weak,
And as he crucified his prey upon those talons,
God was joyous, and adored him in his vision.