This is death,
it rises up…
god's bark-colored thumb…
and opens the sheath of its wings
and turns its hungry, hooked head
upon me, and away,
and softly,
lamp-eyed,
becomes the perfect, billowing instrument
as it glides
through the wind
like a knife..

Mary Oliver, from her poem
"This Morning Again it was in the Dusty Pines"
1991