PAS DE DEUX

An aerial dance no choreographer
designed to entertain and please,
the red-tailed hawks’ pas de deux
high above my earthbound perch
glided and lifted and circled wide,
then soared into the very softness
of the bluest sky since September
started the sure decline of summer
still hot but certain to cool... to end.

Flapping wings would have been
an interruption of what was maybe
male-female courtship or perhaps
something two males do together
when the wind is right and the air
seduces hawks from hunting mice
and sends them into an ecstasy
of rising joy... escape from earth.

The two were alone in the wide sky
above a valley where people go
back and forth and in and out and
around about each other with little
sign of gladness to be alive here
on the earth that seems designed
for more giddy flights of happiness
than most folks take time... to find.