The torn book we burn, and the dead tree

Silent of sap and wind, we cut down.

What space can we spare for an osprey,

Islanded with a wing hurt, or not grown?

We intervene by boat, summer human beings.

Capture it in a net, we shout. Spread care

Over its whiteness, bring it to the station

For study. Is not the sea-osprey rare?

The mother will die of feeding it, or fly

South from winter later, the broken one

Shrink, crying and flapping and left by

As the slow must be. Already all is done.

Yet we steer steadily into it, sunburned

And laughing to meet water. Today is the day

We die all a little, leaving the bird to be

Sea-wreck, moss, bones. It will drift away,

Turned in a wilderness of wind and sun

Where nothing happens, as we are careless

Of one another, and of the broken one

To be blest, although we do not bless.

What happened was that the game-warden

Was told, who in official kindness came,

Saw, and carried the big bird off, a pardon

For no crime, for which there is no name.