Processional

 

I stand lookout for them in autumn,

raptors massing out of Canada, New England

advancing down the barrier beaches,

foraging as they come--

Cooper’s , Sharp-shinned Hawks

hurtling  over the dunes,

Merlins, small dark missiles of speed,

Kestrels heliocopter hovering on beating wings,

Northern  Harriers dropping over prey like shadowy cloaks.

Always, I scan the sky for the meteoric one,

the Peregrine Falcon,

catapulting out of the horizon into the Tree Swallow flock,

Monarch of this pilgrimage of predation