Uploaded on May 19, 2012
To Christ our Lord
I caught this morning morning’s minion, kingdom 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 plód makes plough donw sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
—Gerard Manley Hopkins
Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets
05.19.2024: I got a number of nice comments about this image over at Flickr twelve years ago. My response to them all was quite interesting: “Thank you, guys. Charlie, I think it’s a hawk, but I’m not good at identifying such creatures. Of course, the poem refers to a falcon, so maybe I should blissfully assume that it is. 🙂 Oh, wait: I just showed the photo to my 11yo son, and he said, “Osprey.” Oh, and get this, I saw something out the window, thought it was a large dog walking down the road, saw another one right behind it, and realized that it was two bears! I grabbed my camera, but could get off only one shot before they headed into the woods. Of course, 6yo Jack closed the door and hit my arm JUST as I was pushing the shutter button. I’m so bummed.”
Just last week, I told the bear story, having no idea how long ago it happened. That same night, Dennis saw a smallish bear in the woods across the road.