Second Avatar, Seven

Earl Pascoe,
Difficulty with Birds

The bird in flight calls me upon its wing
As it itself, for its unbounded ride;
Its beauty turns and cuts; it swells to sing,
Just when I shut my eyes and turn aside.
On raising them again, the bird has left –
All that remains is infinitely blue;
But still impressed upon my eyes, where it once cleft:
A shadow haunts, its presence breaking through.
I want to be a wolf heard by the moon,
I want to be a tiger of the dark,
I want the stars to see, recoil and swoon
Before my howl, shriek, growl, bay, bawl or bark.
But I choose to confine that that I saw
And watch the moving skies as through a straw.