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The Life So Short...
and larks rising out of dead grass
and lambs antiphonal between rocky outcrops
and the discreet one-note charm
of the willow warbler wishing itself
into invisibility between sally trees
where desperate with its own
single-mind intent the yellow-eyed
red-tail kite (still an edgy fledgling)
prepares to put into lethal play
its own unforgiving art by twitching
one nervous feather after another
in the precious seconds before lift-off
Copyright � 2014 by Eamon Grennan. Used with permission of the author.
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About This Poem
"Most of the details in this little poem were simply notations from a summer walk I took out in Connemara in the West of Ireland where I live when I can. The birds are local, all except the red-tail kite, which was reintroduced into Ireland in 2007, when I read about it. I wanted it for the 'lethal play' to contrast with the other 'pastoral' details."
--Eamon Grennan
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