The Goshawk
See! The goshawk mounts
To the throne of heaven
And, marking time
In wings’ flap and fluster
Rises perilously close
To the sun –
To that same orb and sceptre
Which garnered Icarus’ son
To an inevitable melt-down.
Fly lower, bird,
And list to starboard,
To kiss the memory
Of my love – now!
That love lays in scant,
Selstonian timber
In the hinterland
Of home and bone
Bleach that fragment
Of a happy thought!
Gone now too soon
That which should have stood
As perennial edifice
To mortality and soul.
Oh: gone strange bird –
Let your melted voice be heard
In ships’ rafters –
Barren, and Memory’s hall;
Cup hands and capture
That flight attender
Into that measure
Breed a rejoinder
Of safe, eventful Muse –
Too precious to cast aside and lose,
That grape cluster
Of a second’s refracted kiss – all this
Once near Gethsemane
Now in echoing bar
And still unflapping sail
Throw his the palm and hand
And return to now!
Forego one piece of knowledge
That there was once a happy span!
Leave an imprint on the wind
And lament once again –
Then wander down precious
Memory Lane
The Kiss of Judas --Ary Scheffer
See! The goshawk mounts
To the throne of heaven
And, marking time
In wings’ flap and fluster
Rises perilously close
To the sun –
To that same orb and sceptre
Which garnered Icarus’ son
To an inevitable melt-down.
Fly lower, bird,
And list to starboard,
To kiss the memory
Of my love – now!
That love lays in scant,
Selstonian timber
In the hinterland
Of home and bone
Bleach that fragment
Of a happy thought!
Gone now too soon
That which should have stood
As perennial edifice
To mortality and soul.
Oh: gone strange bird –
Let your melted voice be heard
In ships’ rafters –
Barren, and Memory’s hall;
Cup hands and capture
That flight attender
Into that measure
Breed a rejoinder
Of safe, eventful Muse –
Too precious to cast aside and lose,
That grape cluster
Of a second’s refracted kiss – all this
Once near Gethsemane
Now in echoing bar
And still unflapping sail
Throw his the palm and hand
And return to now!
Forego one piece of knowledge
That there was once a happy span!
Leave an imprint on the wind
And lament once again –
Then wander down precious
Memory Lane
The Kiss of Judas --Ary Scheffer
The goshawk (Accipiter gentilis)is a diurnal raptor. Its English name comes from the Anglo-Saxon "gōsheafoc" (goose-hawk),but Carl Linnaeus gave it its scientific name in his "Systema naturae" in 1758 from the Latin "accipere" (to grasp) and "gentilis" (noble) because only the aristocracy was permitted to fly goshawks for falconry. In pursuit of avian prey (especially doves and pigeons) its flight is characterized by an intense burst of speed followed by a binding maneuver, where the goshawk inverts and seizes the prey from below. It also shows a marked willingness to follow prey into thick vegetation, even pursuing prey on foot through brush.
ReplyDeleteDaedalus was an Athenian craftsman who built the Labyrinth for king Minos of Crete to imprison the half-man/half-man minotaur and later gave Minos' daughter Ariadne a clue (ball of string) to present to Theseus so he could slay the monster and find his way back out of the maze. For this effrontery Minos imprisoned Daedalus and his son
Ikaros in the Labyrinth. To escape, Daedalus invented wings from feathers and wax and warned Ikaros not to fly to low (so the sea's dampness would not clog the wings) or too high (because the sun's heat would melt the wax), but Ikaros disobeyed his father, flew too close to the sun, and fell into the sea and drowned. (Euhemeristic Hellenistic writers claimed that Daedlus invented the 1st sails and fled by ship, but Icaros fell overboard.)
Jesus and his disciples frequently visited an urban garden in Jerusalem to relax and pray, so Judas knew where to find him after he agreed to betray him to the local authorities. The garden, Gat Shmanim ("oil press") is better known by its Greek term, Gethsemane. Judas identified Jesus (often symbolized as a dove) by kissing him. Jesus was arrested, tried, and crucified.
Selston is a hilltop village in Nottinghamshire, England.
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