This festive flight,
the Spirit offers wings
to every thought and prayer that ever was.
This soaring elegance
is all of God
yet brightly vicious
tearing pinions from its prey.
Falling from the sky the devil’s minion,
messenger of doom hurtles,
falls,
halts within a footfall of the soil
and lifts that rodent,
eyes afire with fear
that feels its final breath as lifted heavenward…
a final flight.
© Andrew Pratt 13/3/2020 in tribute to David Attenborough’s reading of The Peregrine by J.A. Baker on BBC Sounds – https://www.bbc.co.uk/search?filter=programmes&q=the+peregrine
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