On The Killing of A Bird of Prey

A bad omen out of the blue sky.

Its silent intent to kill sent it at a screaming angle

across the dual carriageway to death itself,

so intent on its slanting vector to target  the creature

unknowing on the verge of the roaring hard shoulder.

Heedless with andry hunger it crashed into my car

at sixty miles an hour, undone without a shriek of pain.

Then this beauty of a moment ago richocheted

back into the air, a mockery of flight,

dead on the rebound and left for the crows,

on its back, beak open, not in prayer,

but talons curled and beseeching to the sky,

torn feathers ruffled by each passing car,

and there for a fortnight until picked clean

and the bones dispersed to the wind.