Lady With A Falcon
I originally shot this picture with the falcon flying to the Lady’s hand. Then I found the following poem about a medieval tapestry hanging in the Metropoitan Museum of Art in New York City. So, I changed to have the falcon on the Lady’s hand. I believe the tapestry in the second pic is the one that inspired the poem. The poem and author are a bit obscure. The challenge is to figure out what the poem is telling us. Enjoy!
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Lady with a Falcon
By May Sarton
Gentleness and starvation tame.
The falcon to this lady’s wrist.
Natural flight hooded from blame.
By what ironic fate or twist?
For now the hunched bird’s contained flight
Pounces upon her inward air,
To plunder that mysterious night
Of poems blooded as the hare.
Heavy becomes the lady’s hand,
And heavy bends the gentle head
Over her hunched and brooding bird
Until it is she who seems hooded.
Lady, your falcon is a peril.
Is starved, is mastered, but not kind.
The bird who sits your hand so gentle,
The captured hunter hunts your mind.
Better to starve the senseless wind
Than wrist a falcon’s stop and start:
The bolt of flight you thought to bend
Plummets into your inmost heart
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In the book Selected Letters, 1955-1995 by Susan Sherman, the letter to Louise Bogan written on March 10th 1955 by May Sarton states:
“Do you know the Mediaeval depart. at the Met which this poem is about?
The lady has the most brooding hooded face—the whole thing is a masterpiece of understatement and very troubling.”
