Two Poems with Hawks in Them

I mean to post more poetry. Two short whole ones here. First, from Colin Simms' Gyrfalcon Poems, "Hesitates at the Apex" :

Hesitates at the apex, hovers wind his acceptance
until he topples over the edge of his calculus;
stoops as an arrow will fall, the archer lifted to cross,
clear, and drop vertical behind their defences
perhaps no faster than peregrine but far heavier
great wings opening creaking to platform one deathsever
one claw for the merganser's neck; left talon, rear toe.
Aftershock felt in my cheek followed by warmth as he sends
dead duck down in its own down. He staggers air as if with the bends
but his skill and spine are strong though organs float in the force
he has to gravity, to beauty of form endorsed...

Thanks also to Lauren McGough, who sent his American Poems-- reviews coming.)

And from Les Murray's Learning Human, "Ariel":

Upwards, cheeping, on huddling wings
these small brown mynas have gained
a keener height than their kind ever sustained
but whichever of them fails first
falls to the hawk circling under
who drove the up.
Nothing's free when it is explained.

More from both, probably soon.