The Hawk

His hooked, thrusting beak
batters the perfect arches of the shell
to burst that sky of chalk.  The hatched hawk
staggers, naked and wet—agape with greed,
ravening, flightless—grows toward flight,
trampling the bright fragments down to dung.

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Mere song, mere art seems weak,
but thrusts at the heart, striking sudden and fell,
as mind and reason balk.  Oh song, my hawk
soaring to grasp the sun; oh blind need
to shatter this cage, to reach toward flight,
spurning our dust, our lives, as chaff, as dung!

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And spirit is not meek;
it breaks the flesh to bid the flesh farewell,
shouldering out of the dark.  Our soul, oh hawk,
our naked soul strikes at the hour decreed,
severs the heart, leaps toward flight,
and stamps this earthen bloom back to dung.