I’ve named our red tails
Gertrude and Claudius.
Their twin chicks,
Hamlet and Hamlet
Seem more to the point.
I hear them scoring
Squirrels in the trees.
They grow and swoop
In impossibly majestic arcs:
To hell with rodent prayers.
I age,
I watch the woods,
And pray for rescue:
A death as sudden
As a visit from a prince,
One announced
And silent,
Royal feathers
Carving air,
Asking nothing
In their finality.
– poem by Philip L. “Buck” Preston