Billion Times Told Lovlier Poem by Dónall Dempsey

Perched upon your wrist
a kestrel in all its wild magnificence
the gaze
always alert

it is we who are tamed
awed by its power
it is simply itself
and nothing else
so essentially elemental.
It’s flight
is our astonishment

as if it were
a living metaphor
its beauty
an alchemy

of mind & time
together
transformed
into what can not be imagined

only hinted at...
The talons
clutching at

your offered wrist
(Death the music of little bells)
yet content to eat
dead mice from the tips of your fingertips.
Your heart
this bird

something I could never own
untamed by love
I can only watch
the beauty of its flight

and be amazed that it is
to me that it returns
wild & free.