A Small Cowering Thing by David Solway

A Small Cowering Thing

I saw it hovering in the distance, a trim and pinioned harrier

stalling in mid-flight, almost loitering,

carrying out aerial reconnaissance in lordly indifferent leisure

(yet bird-alert, genetic with intent), and reconnoitering

the terrain that rolled away beneath its hanging there

in level slabs of icy light and deckle-flecked leaf-shed shade,

slice like a kid’s model glider

in strictly-plotted arcs of eliding mathematical certitude. 

And oh! how it rose then, abrupt in updraft, as if on a swing

or swift and aquiline as a Frisbee; floated; and dropped

slow and deliberate and soundless as a plumbline in water

to fathom its shadow. 

                                And a small cowering thing

huddling in that solemn hush of darkness stopped

to cry out its astonishment as if it could, or mattered.