A few hours ago on our morning walk with Uschi (our six-year-old eighty-eight pound German Shepherd), sun shone gold, ocean dazzled dark blue.
Bill and I chatted…sparingly. Our hearts are heavy. A cherished friend is at the last stage of a painful mortal illness and soon will leave us.
As we walk, normally we plan the day before us. Bill holds Uschi’s leash…I no longer need the support of a stick. Often I drift and dream.
This morning I kept hearing the lines of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ sonnet inspired by a kestrel:
“I caught this morning morning’s minion, kingdom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon…”
How glorious…one hundred forty-seven years ago in London, a thirty-three-year-old Jesuit knew my feeling this sad but beautiful Santa Cruz morning.
If you aren’t familiar with Hopkins’ poetry, I am thrilled to introduce you to a heartbreakingly original and soaringly spiritual genius.
The Windhover
Gerard Manley Hopkins 1844 – 1889
I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.
This poem is in the public domain.
Note Please – WordPress won’t allow me to insert the indents specific to this poem, but if you want to read it with the proper indents, click the link I included in the poem title.
4 Comments. Leave new
Sylvia, you remembered such a deep poem. I view a falcon soaring in the wind… using the measured wisps and gusts as it spots its prey. I never thought that “skaters” would be literal. Now I see one gliding their way in a figure 8. Thanks for the thought-provoking message. We CAN power our own life. Spectacular.
Dearest Gail, your empathy and caring are deeply appreciated.
Thank you, dear Sylvia, for returning this poem to me after 60 years as an undergraduate at UCLA. I read it this morning and soared with mad Hopkins.
Ah, Malka, so happy you are also a Hopkins person. His language drives me crazier than I usually am.