Happy birthday, Warren.

Albrizio, Robert Penn Warren, 1935

Robert Penn Warren was born on this day in 1905.

EVENING HAWK 

From plane of light to plane, wings dipping through 

Geometries and orchids that the sunset builds, 

Out of the peak's black angularity of shadow, riding 

The last tumultuous avalanche of 

Light above pines and the guttural gorge, 

The hawk comes. 

His wing 

Scythes down another day, his motion 

Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear 

The crashless fall of stalks of Time. 

The head of each stalk is heavy with the gold of our error. 

Look! Look! he is climbing the last light 

Who knows neither Time nor error, and under 

Whose eye, unforgiving, the world, unforgiven, swings 

Into shadow. 

Long now, 

The last thrush is still, the last bat 

Now cruises in his sharp hieroglyphics. His wisdom 

Is ancient, too, and immense. The star 

Is steady, like Plato, over the mountain.

If there were no wind we might, we think, hear 

The earth grind on its axis, or history
Drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar.

Robert Penn Warren