i.m. Theodore Roethke
1
There is no hawk among my friends.
Swiftly they cruise their chosen air,
Not to spy the grey fieldmouse
And plummet fiercely to the moor,
But to survey a heaven, inspect
The small, the far. Is it news
That the beetle’s back is abstract,
A jewel box; the ash pod has glider wings?
Cruelty is not their way of life,
Nor indifference; they ride the currents
To grasp the invisible. The service
They do shapes also what they are
And the fernlike talon uncurls:
There is no hawk among my friends.
2
There are days when the head is
A bitter, predatory thing
Which will not let oneself
Or others alone, prying, rending!
It is a chill sensuality
Which outdistances cruelty
As though destruction were
A releasing element
Down which the mind patrols —
A wide vanned golden eagle —
Seizing the unnecessary, the small,
With juridical claws.
But sometimes when it sails
Too swift, between the wings’ pause,
I know that my own best life
Is the hypnotized fieldmouse
Housed beneath its claws.
A Chosen Light (1967)