Nocturne Poem by Martin Ward

Nocturne

This night office
is not to pray,
but red of orifice.
Sometimes straying
to wispish dawn
or light of day.
See who waits to swoop:
talons on pulpit await
one who strays
from the group.
This eerie shriek
does not give a hoot;
so to speak.
I sometimes see
on a roadside post,
he or she:
as I drive,
in the half-light,
a flash of dive.
I watched a slow motion
raising up, as if
on angel's wings,
then falling for the prey.
Are we both hovering
above the kill,
or on a wing and prayer?
Once, I saw
a bird on a wire:
it stayed for weeks,
frozen to its pyre.
Our Matins do not mix,
ecumenically speaking,
but we creatures
seek to fix
the wrongs
and environs
which we share
before they are gone.