Kolmrden Zoo

Over our heads, trailing a wake of air

and an enormous shadow as it passed,

the falcon glided to its trainer’s fist

and settled like a loaded weapon there.

Then, while she fed the bird bit after bit

of... what? rabbit? the trainer gave her talk:

These birds, she said, prey on the small and weak,

adding for the children’s benefit

that this, though it seems cruel, is really good

since otherwise the other rabbits, mice,

squirrels, what have you, would run out of space

and die of illness or a lack of food.

I know what she was trying to get across,

and I don’t doubt it would be healthier

if we were more familiar than we are

with how the natural world draws life from loss;

and granted, nothing is more natural

than death incarnate falling from the sky;

and granted, it is better some should die,

however agonizingly, than all.

Still, to teach children this is how things go

is one thing, to insist that it is good

is something else—it is to make a god

of an unsatisfactory status quo,

this vicious circle that the clock hands draw

and quarter, while the serpent bites its tail,

or eats the dust, or strikes at someone’s heel,

or winds up comprehended by a claw.

She launched the bird again. We watched it climb

out of the amphitheatre, headed toward

the darkened spires of a nearby wood,

then bank, then angle toward us one last time.