The Eagle At Sunset

(Just North of Winston-Salem)

 

This trek begins near Pinnacle.

 

Yes, I’ve been here before:

A shadowed cow wades in a farmer’s pond.

 

The sun becomes

a thin and setting line.  A lone tobacco plant

 

moves thorny underbrush

aside, poking through.  The smell of money

 

no longer dances in the wind.

Coiled cedar roots cling to the earth like

 

young octopi to their eight-legged mothers.

I drink water in long, refreshing gulps,

 

enjoy the evening, flanked by evergreens:

watching an eagle—diving

 

from Pilot’s forbidden ledge, soaring in

concentric circles, charging the down-currents

 

of the gusty wind.

Then, a darkening silhouette:  And he’s lost

 

in the reddening sky.

 

first published in Domicile and later in Gathering the Broken Pieces