Ode to an Eaglet               June 2011, Wyoming

 

I saw your nest high above the Wyoming fields. Your mother resplendent and perched over your still live sibling, now the sole heir to her nest, her food, her beak.  

 

You lie still amidst the prairie grasses in a secluded spot where post and wire dissect the fields in moist pools from overflowing spring melt river banks and the toil of beavers.

 

Now your small wheat colored corpses lies with its…

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We walk along the high altitude timber trail passing tall stands of Aspen with florescent green leaves unfurling into spring.  We come upon four fallen Aspen their wide trunks crossing our way, ..creamy white  and black striped bark like animal skin.



Our riding boots and chaps swish along the grass filled lane dressed with fresh dung droppings.  I raise my eyes across the horizon in search of silent standing elk.  I breathe.



Red willow branches stretch alongside bright…

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He squats on the ground, tries to comfort the calf
A few hours old
Glistening, yelping

The mother bellows, wants her child safe
In the chaos of birth
She has fallen on her own newborn.

The wrangler thinks of his own
Miscarried child
Extinguished at eight weeks

The afterbirth steams on the prairie floor

A coyote, on a rise behind them
Is besotted with gluttony

River washing down canyons

echoing with women.

My hands touch clay, touch stone,

touch ropes, touch water, touch

sand.......touch each other.

My hands hold on to the other for

support, for familiarity.

Shaky I float down this river

watching my daughter, young and

energetically challenge rapids....

I know this place within me, but not

today. My hands hold tighter to

each other, feels the bones and dry

skin that darken in the sun. I… Continue