378: Eagles in Sacramento, by Andrew J. Leggett
This is a poem I originally wrote over the summer; I woke up from my nap last night and rewrote/expanded it, and I think if I can do this with all the other "Images" poems, I could actually make it work. I'm thinking of submitting this for the Lit Review (BBC's opponent; is that disloyal? XP).
Please comment, so I know if it sucks or not! ^_~
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Eagles in Sacramento
This kind of thing never happens:
it is one of those typical Sundays,
when I am walking down the shaded
curve of University, on my way
back from wandering Sac State,
and watching for approaching cars
and the brief pieces of blue visible
through the gaps in the foliage above.
It doesn't happen suddenly:
it is as if they emerge, or separate
from the shadows of the branches,
wings unfurling like leaves, circling
and disappearing from sight with
the regularity of a twirling leaf.
Yet they do not fall:
instead, they circle through the sky
in concentric circles, slowly working
their way from the river―just barely
hidden by the apartment buildings to
my right and the curve of the levees
behind them―and at first I take them
for great paper kites, winged silhouettes
shuddering on the humid summer air.
But these are not kites:
they are eagles, the sun that does not
reach me here through the trees glints
off the deadly curve of their beaks as
they swirl with their shadowy flock above
this place where, if they have never been,
I, at least, have never seen them.
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