How to express my affection for you, as you speed

from your nest, a shallow dip in the rock, to scream

with other terns as you hover, twist and drop to catch

fish for your chick amidst waves, sun, wind and snatching

beaks and you”ll stick that red dagger into anyone

that threatens the chick, however large. Your feminine

powers are not limited to child-rearing but include

charting a track down Africa towards the fast-food

winter paradise of Antarctica where the sun shines

24/7 to help you hunt. In your 30 year lifetime

you’ll fly roughly 1.5 million miles, through all weathers

over every terrain, making you the most travelled

of all creatures and one of the toughest,although

also one of the most beautiful with your snow-

white tapered wings and tail. You challenge my

sorry-for-myself mood- I’m -not -sleeping, why-

am -I -depressed, my -wife’s not -well, I’m getting-

old- “Soft thing,” you tell me, “my first wetting

was the arctic sea at Spitzbergen, and I’ve flown the hot

edge of the Sahara. As for family, I’ve got

a mate back here in Spring, if he survives,

and young ones as they learn must risk their lives

each day. Last year I watched while one of mine

who made his first flight from the nest, looking to me, calling,

was taken by a peregrine. Only a feather in the air, falling.”