The Life So Short...

and larks rising out of dead grass 
	and lambs antiphonal between rocky outcrops
and the discreet one-note charm 
	of the willow warbler wishing itself 
into invisibility between sally trees 
	where desperate with its own 
single-mind intent the yellow-eyed 
	red-tail kite (still an edgy fledgling) 
prepares to put into lethal play 
	its own unforgiving art by twitching 
one nervous feather after another 
	in the precious seconds before lift-off