The Sparrow Hawk

My own encounter with that meteoritic creature
swift dealer of death
- a bolt from the sky, by speed and surprise
was as I stood by the aviary in my garden
absorbed in watching the coloured birds
chitter-chattering away.
They were used to my presence and never tiring delight
in their busy sociability
so canny and aware of what or who comes and goes
- but not this! this lightening explosion
slamming, with a scrunch and thud of flesh, into the netting
right by my head.
Such was the velocity, it only registered as a delayed effect:
a shock-wave of wind causing an instantaneous flush of blurred brightness
as my little birds dispersed ilke blown petals
and my heart skipped a beat as I leapt sideways - far too late.
For in those few seconds, the rocket bird had collected his wits and self
and angled off and away like a blade scything over the hedge.

I found him the next morning
dead, on the top of the aviary
neck broken, his beautiful blueness unruffled
and golden scimitars of claws clutching air;
his lethal persistence and break-neck linear flight
ending too literally, exactly so.
Even for his hair-trigger reactions, no time to swerve.

I folded his body in dock leaves
and buried him among the forget-me-nots.
Forget-him-not, indeed.