Holiday Club Haiku

scorching weather and
scorchingly awful jokes and
scores of cheering kids

Predator

Against dark clouds, a darker shape circles.
Buzzard? Hawk? Too high, too far to tell,
but oh, the glorious symmetry of wings, curved blades stretching either side,
black brackets making lazy circles, then hanging still, searching, stalking.
At once it loses height, and startles me
with vigorous flapping to catch another current.
Hundreds of feet below I feel heavy, stuck,
as muscle, sinew, feathers defy earth's pull;
and then, as suddenly, it stills, and hangs,
and circles lazily once more.
A while, and then it tracks off to the west.
And now I gaze at somber clouds of grey,
empty, until a flock of smaller birds,
freed to occupy the space above
dart and skit and dance, grey dots against the grey,
children playing once the knight has left the field.