Kites – a poem by Daniel Gustafsson

Kites

It’s light that first attracts
my eyes, a glint of fire overhead,
and then the tug of rufous thread
unreeled from earth to air – 
where twinned, entwining helixes			
unite the rhyming pair 		

in soaring dance. Down here,  	
a moor-patterning grid of pylons, masts
and wire-mesh extends its vast
design. The kites, astride
the bypass now, with fourfold wings
and forking tails divide

the sky between them. Swathes
of edgeland caught within their wheeling span,	
I see them scout and circle, scan	
the fields and tonsured hill		
with pinions poised, then pivot there, 		
anticipate the kill

and swoop. As daylight falls
I stand entranced beneath the reddened sky,	
a single figure, steeple-high,
exposed on open ground 
for savage, all-pursuing love
to run its rings around. 

Daniel Gustafsson has published volumes in both English and Swedish, most recently Fordings (Marble Poetry, 2020). New poems appear in Trinity House Review, The Brazen Head, North American Anglican and The York Journal. Daniel lives in York.  Twitter: @PoetGustafsson Website: www.poetgustafsson.wordpress.com