A hooded hawk
knows it is blind.
Cold winds ruffle
dusty feathers
of once-bright pinions.
It hears the king’s voice:
“I have covered your eyes,
you are kept from your kind.
You shall know only me.”
Hawks do not know
the language of kings.
Kings are too grand
to fiddle with bonds.
A devoted drudge
comes hooding the captives
and cleans their cages.
He brings dead mice.
The birds receive
that royal bounty.
On rainless mornings
the falcon’s master
rides to the hunt,
raptor chained upright
on gloved fist.
Eyes open, it’s free
to harry from heaven
whatever remains
of colour and song.
There are no kings left.
All have been thrown
from palace windows,
shot down in cellars
by bearded dreamers,
sent to grow cabbage
in lowland gardens.
Everything flows,
says the old dark wisdom.
Blood flows, tears flow,
falcons are flown.
– Francis Sparshott
