The Buzzard and Reversal
       

I.

That hooked beak
finds scent and carves
circles above it—
tilting on airy
ridges and shifting
planes and panels, it
leans on one wing,
ascribes the invisible
architecture of rising
air then closes like a door and
falls toward a softness
soon to be opened.

II.

In the dream, there are rabbits. Quiet as ever,
but crowded and jostling round the fallen buzzard.
They ignore the clover where the bird fell, dipping instead
into the dark thatch of feathers with their busy nibblings,
with their tiny snipping teeth. The impossible
softness of their fur is caked with blood. The bird is
broken: a collapsed umbrella. Its naked head emerges
and turns to watch itself drawn shining into the light.

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Copyright © 2012 Michael Bazzett All rights reserved
from Pleiades
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission