Slow, the vultures circle in the sky
Slowly the hyaenas walk on earth, and make an outcry
The snakes with small, squat, poisonous heads raise them
To strike, but are "mocked by a tissue that will not serve"
They shall all die and their bodies shrivel up
in forest and desert and city, village, town;
"hang in a pitiful crescent". In hell, fry.
2.
Flights of black birds in formation
overhead, going home
or to sleep
turn the evening into winged dreams
There are bruises on the sky
cuts and wounds -
part of the fact that birds can fly -
in the clouds
Red gashes
blue or black
turning the evening into
purple twilight and night
The birds continue their flight
looking effortless
Do they wish to be wingless
and grounded
with or like us here, down below
the way humans wish they could float, unwounded
in the air of the heavens; 'weightless', cutting a path
through, free, in endless flight?
The two quotes are from two poems by Samuel Beckett called the Vulture and Yoke of Liberty respectively
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