The Foolish Wing

Is done now with bright thinness of upper air. Weight
Of body sinks earthward: good capture. Probing of wing's
Torn muscle under the raised and eager feathers
Points obvious and necessary truth. Time grows too late
For the torn ligament to attempt heaven. There is
Nothing either in rememberings.

Through thin and remote heavens the broken arc
Turned earthward at point of rupture. It was past peak
Of the far height the wing failed. Clearly
As pomade of sun on flashing porpoise, mark
The inevitable. We have invented nothing: when we speak
It is Time's journalism only: we are reporting merely.