Peregrine Falcon Tumbling

On that same stretch of highway, Derek,
Some miles past Desert Aire, I rode
My bike Gloria through a murderous gale.
Imagine me there, canted into the wind,
Opposing lane pulling and sucking,
Tumbleweeds like pinballs bouncing,
Visibility damn near zip. Dunes
Sketched their fingers across my way,
Grit polished my teeth-Sweet Gloria
Roared in third against that storm.
I feared I would crash, considered
Dropping my ride in the bar ditch,
Wondered if the wind would blow for days.
Then a peripheral blur from gale-ward north
Tumbled into view: a pin wheeling falcon
Utterly out of control, bouncing through air,
Careened like a kite in the mad wind's teeth,
Smashed into my shoulder. Time, as it must,
Stopped, and we caught each other eye to eye-
The falcon's, pinpoints of distilled hatred,
Mine, wide, red, watering-then apart,
He on his way to cover if he lived, me
Toward Pasco.
                              Not so much the skin
Of the world for me or my storm's partner
In the sad trisection of a crazed encounter.
Five years ago some young lady
Riding her Harley back the other way
Felt herself lifted driving toward the river
As she crested the canyon's lip. The wind
Turned her into a falcon briefly, and she
Tumbled, too, several revolutions
Through careless air, tumbled more
Upon impact with asphalt. What raptor
Saw, veered, circled, shrieked
A peregrine's lonely, piercing cry
As that rider, like a dry leaf, traveler
Of this tumbling world, spun
In the sudden desert storm-and died?

 
by Gerald Tiffany