Kit Kelen #468 - a lark / taking a rise

468
a lark / taking a rise

apologies to Geroge Meredith and Ralph Vaughan Williams


it's all up
feathers yet to fly

rises and begins
to round

in view of meadow
sometimes solemn

banking out
slow spiral

over bodies of water
scatter of leaves among

dimple, eddy
waxing thin

slur, shake, ever winging
silver cup

and sometimes almost out of shot
who has known this bird?

a breath held, and all yet
a war got in the wings of it

just when time came nearly still
still this lark

extends the dome
we have to take it for laughter

something fashioned
to sit upon a golden bough

never knowing how little time's left
anointing like hope held in the heart

made treeless for the trenches
a tremble in and trill, so spacious

up above the mud so high
you neither see nor feel the lice

not a syllable to sing
nothing earthly

but our truth in it
winged for this brief flight