I hear the falcon
but not the falconer;
its prescient screech
claws at my ears

The shadow of its wings
is delivered by the sun
but those who gather
in its path cry out in vain

The worst conflate
their ways with
passionate intensity,
belied by lack of
true sincerity

And yet the best
decline to rise or cease
virtue as vulnerability;
they watch unwittingly

as the falcon turns above,
finding no footsteps
into Bethlehem