From plane of light to plane, wings dipping through <br />Geometries and orchids that the sunset builds, <br />Out of the peak's black angularity of shadow, riding <br />The last tumultuous avalanche of <br />Light above pines and the guttural gorge, <br />The hawk comes. <br /> His wing <br />Scythes down another day, his motion <br />Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear <br />The crashless fall of stalks of Time. <br /> <br />The head of each stalk is heavy with the gold of our error. <br /> <br />Look!Look!he is climbing the last light <br />Who knows neither Time nor error, and under <br />Whose eye, unforgiving, the world, unforgiven, swings <br />Into shadow. <br /> <br />Long now, <br />The last thrush is still, the last bat <br />Now cruises in his sharp hieroglyphics.His wisdom <br />Is ancient, too, and immense.The star <br />Is steady, like Plato, over the mountain. <br /> <br />If there were no wind we might, we think, hear <br />The earth grind on its axis, or history <br />Drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar.<br /><br />Robert Penn Warren<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/evening-hawk/
