'The Fighting Eagles'

- K.N. Daruwalla
They fought for the same reasons:
a female,
a patch of sky
or crag-kingdom.
Quills rigid a sabers,
white hackles bristling
they ripped the sky apart
as they lunged at each other.
All their lives they had trained for this
chiselling their passions,
tuning their screams
to the right pitch of the hatred
and flexing their talons.
Their keening was no longer
fierce and chill:
a language of pure sound,
but a splurging hysteria.
As they dipped and rose
their senses reeled.
The enemy became fearless, voiceless
and the crag-kingdom
black with a million nights of frost
swiveled around them.
They didn't see the void
as it churned beneath.
They couldn't sense
the benedction of the skies.
As they came apart
feather with bloodied feather,
with its coloured panels ripped aside,
they leaned on a perch
keeping one wing open
to steady themselves.
They soared upwards till the sky
looked like an inverted vortex.
They were striving for height:
each wanted momentum behind him
as he closed in for the kill.
Whre they eagles raking up the skies
or berserk soldiers fighting on a hil?