Tern for Tarn

No jesses to bate

           against the arctic

                       air, light

passes through a drop of oil

in the eye, spectral sight

this vision

           of soaring still soaring

heart beating quick between

the wings

the light underfoot underwing

hovering in stillness, wings beating

           against the air

against feathered peak lamp-

black eyes thinking

           always thinking to dive

arrowlike into the water

silvered bait in wine-dark beak

                                      Aeolian lift

ghostly tail half a mermaid’s purse

guides the wind

along the meridian arcs

the lifelong peregrinations

between the antipodes

                         circumpolar flight

           in sight of the horizon

half the brain sleeps as the other

half dreams

           through ecliptic tilt across

hemispheres

           chasing the sunlight

                      no-voice calling

           from the periphery

beyond the clouds and blue

mists

                        you likewise blessed

                        by the House of Birds

                        between the waters

having left this world late

           less ice for rest less trees

                                     to breathe

           for the land without night

writing patterns in the sky

as a mascle of sable and or

unknotted key to the eterfinifrete

as speech in the flames, unscathed

drawn to earth by translucent wings