On my walks to the lake, I watch the hawks and turkey vultures and recite Hopkins' poem to them. It helps to keep it stashed in my memory! Here it is, along with my own response to the power of The Windhover.
The Windhover
BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
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 plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah, my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
Shadow Wing
By Kristen Swanson
To Christ our Lord
A curl of early air slips in where I
lie warm, cocooned in darkness. Now I’m caught,
dragged through raw grey space between this
Insubstantial dream and sharp-edged morning.
The sweet decay of dying leaves sings morning’s
fallen rapture, but like a cruel minion
sent to me from some inchoate kingdom,
memory sets upon my chest a stone of
Grief. No breath but sorrow’s gasp in daylight’s
brightening air, obeisance to the dauphin,
despair. Yet leaping lights that wing-dapple
counterpane and wall call to a different dawn.
To rise and meet candescent day I’m drawn
By courage dressed in feathers, valorous Falcon.