Fifteen ways of Looking at a Lapwing, #10

The bird skims across the water like a skipping stone
Pursued by a snarl shaped like a fox.

Fifteen ways of Looking at a Lapwing, #9

The meadow, blades of grass
A landscape of soil, ripe and scalloped by the rain
Steamy loam ready to take to a different kind of nest
Suddenly a wall of feathers descends
Huge and brown, iridescent, each brown drab feather
Somehow rippling deeply with colour
A light bomb exploding with colour like a tropical sunset
The wing scrapes overhead and is gone

Fifteen ways of Looking at a Lapwing, #8

The evidence of age, the skimming black dots
In the land of screaming birds each dot is a bird with
Wings sewn together over its back, eyes pierced with
Needles, legs broken in multiple places
They fall forever
Each a Lapwing who lost her nest

Fifteen ways of Looking at a Lapwing, #7

In the land of screaming birds space is only direction, not distance
Time is stretched to an endless glowing moment
There are no clouds, just a blue mist
Overlain with the patina of infinity
That mortal eyes never see
The delicate white crackling, the evidence of vast age
Black dots skim across

Fifteen ways of Looking at a Lapwing, #6

Against a sky that looks as though
The blue were matte paint
Hastily slapped on the heavens
The Lapwing cuts lines and curves,
Tying the sky together with grace.

Fifteen ways of Looking at a Lapwing, #5

To be the first to fly across the field of broken bones
And see the roadway of shards the dead will walk upon
To fly across, along, up

Fifteen ways of Looking at a Lapwing, #4

We will summon all of our resources
And those of our allies
Spy satellites the size of pickups
Will gently rotate and re-focus

Ballistic, sub-orbital
Spy planes
will fly overhead taking
10,000 pictures a second

Glittering machines
The size and shape of spiders
Will skitter through the hedgerow
Looking for the nest