Sonnet CLXXXI

They claw the sky with fingers, black and long.
They fly across the sea like ink on white.
They screech and yell with maddened, wicked might
and cackle like the demons in a throng.

With twelve Valkyries rightly they belong,
proceeding on their journey through the night.
Obsessive over such a wicked flight,
unwavering, determined, never wrong.

What lovely beasts are these? Whence do they fly?
Perhaps eternity is where they fly,
but never reaching it, they never die.
What cleverness they must possess to fly
from death! So simply death they have defied,
demise they have absolved and fear defied.