#windhover

Emmeria air force Group Photo!- wait what, wtf Ghost Eye

Silly art I made a few days ago lol

To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-

dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding

Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here

Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,

Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

To Christ Our Lord

Tuesday Review: Marjorie Maddox’s Wives’ Tales

In an effort to keep me on track with some promises and with my desire to read and review more poetry, here’s a new feature for you, Tuesday Reviews. There will be at least two kinds—the regular review, hopefully with a link to the full review published elsewhere, and the ones that I should have written agesago. We’ll call that second sort “Overdue Reviews” (playing a bit off that librarian thing…

Lots of birds of prey seem to be around at the moment. In the last week or so I've seen at least a dozen kites, six or so buzzards, a sparrowhawk and a windhover. I don't know if it's a spring thing, or a weather thing, but they never stop being a thrill, hanging threateningly in the air like they do. Especially kites, which are such a success story in conservation terms. And if you are anywhere near the A1 these days, a sighting of their forked tail is almost guaranteed.