You and I Saw Hawks Exchanging the Prey

By James Wright 1927–1980 James Wright

They did the deed of darkness

In their own mid-light.

He plucked a gray field mouse

Suddenly in the wind.

The small dead fly alive

Helplessly in his beak,

His cold pride, helpless.

All she receives is life.

They are terrified. They touch.

Life is too much.

She flies away sorrowing.

Sorrowing, she goes alone.

Then her small falcon, gone.

Will not rise here again.

Smaller than she, he goes

Claw beneath claw beneath

Needles and leaning boughs,

While she, the lovelier

Of these brief differing two,

Floats away sorrowing,

Tall as my love for you,

And almost lonelier.

Delighted in the delighting,

I love you in mid-air,

I love myself the ground.

The great wings sing nothing

Lightly. Lightly fall.

James Wright, “You and I Saw Hawks Exchanging Prey” from Above the River: The Complete Poems and Selected Prose. Copyright © 1990 by Anne Wright. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC, www.fsgbooks.com. All rights reserved. Caution: Users are warned that this work is protected under copyright laws and downloading is strictly prohibited. The right to reproduce or transfer the work via any medium must be secured with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

Source: Above the River: The Complete Poems and Selected Prose (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1990)

Biography

James Wright was frequently referred to as one of America's finest contemporary poets. He was admired by critics and fellow poets alike for his willingness and ability to experiment with language and style, as well as for his thematic concerns. In the Minnesota Review, Peter A. Stitt wrote that Wright's work both represents and parallels the development of the best modern American poets: "Reading the Collected Poems of James . . .

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