with what it sees –

by Roger Desy

rebuffed and buffeting – rising over the circles of its veering

– its talons tucked into an underbelly’s agitation rippling

in the turbulence – the knitted barbs blown to a feathering

lift in the slip of updrafts to the ring of ice on a blinding sun

where a finesse of wings within the whims of the prevailing winds

soars over random symmetries of undulating fields – and ash

of an aloof stray shadow in the glare gathering terrain to a temerity

of retina – pierces a frayed-strained skrrie to stir the surface

till the inevitable chance tangent erratic other shadows

blurring the white of white on white divert its gaze from hint

and sign to a fixation one at one with what it is it sees it sees

– tenacity in its acuity tweaking the flurries at the edge of squalls

into the heart of the squall itself – plummeting sieves of wisps

unseen a shining faceting the wind-sheared frigid-heated air stoops

to the ecstatic target of a snowbound prey pinned to a stain on snow