halftwo
Wird Batcher
The sky thin ice, blue and brittle,
The winter-dead wood so many reaching
Bony fingers rattling in the grave cold wind.
In the harrowed sun-warmed hollow
Of the furrowed field
Five hundred Linnets skim and swirl
Like Dunlin above tide-hidden sands.
Their gathered sound in multiples pulses
Softly as the flighty flock swarms,
Circles, spirals and finally settles.
From out of the long-stretched shadows
A Sparrowhawk, dark against the stubble
Glides low towards the game herds ahead.
Finches rise and the flock splinters,
On the flanks of the hawk heading for
The impossibility of hiding from
A thousand eyes.
The winter-dead wood so many reaching
Bony fingers rattling in the grave cold wind.
In the harrowed sun-warmed hollow
Of the furrowed field
Five hundred Linnets skim and swirl
Like Dunlin above tide-hidden sands.
Their gathered sound in multiples pulses
Softly as the flighty flock swarms,
Circles, spirals and finally settles.
From out of the long-stretched shadows
A Sparrowhawk, dark against the stubble
Glides low towards the game herds ahead.
Finches rise and the flock splinters,
On the flanks of the hawk heading for
The impossibility of hiding from
A thousand eyes.
