Kestrel Poetry

While trying to decide whether/what psuedonym to use for this blog, I considered the first: Kestrel. A name I went by for four of the hardest years of my life, with people that knew nothing about me, and where I first found my love of community--and long before I was ever interested in animal medicine. It reminds me of fire, that high when you're doing something you love.
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Kestrel, feathered ferocity, the gutteral feminine winged thing, kess-trulll...
If oak is storm embodied then you are wind breathing in down and talons: the dive and rise, scooped wing and soft call, feather and claw, feather and claw.

HOW TO BUILD A KESTREL
After Kathleen Lynch's "How to Build an Owl"

Gather grassland feathers: storm hues. Brown black cobalt blue. Moon's cream. Make sure they rustle; sing folk songs.

Assemble in layers: slim bone, knife sharp feathers, agile as air herself.

Palms together now, eyes to the sky. Whisper, prey.

Feed ballet slippers, running shoes--try the diet of grace yourself and the wind will still catch you but not her, not your raptor womanly as mountains. Ferocity comes last, polished into every edge, especially the unsharpened.

The breeze is her jess and storms leather bells, please Mother, let her lift off. Do not watch for which tree she lands in. There are none here, none that you can see.