A man on a mesa
marvels all afternoon
at an eagle
surveying stunted sagebrush.
At sundown, the eagle returns to a crag,
the man to his fire
where he watches a dying star sweep
low and wide into Armageddon.
Feeling the chill of extinction,
he rustles the snapping fire
into flurries of sparks,
speculates:
What’s an eagle
if man can focus the universe,
find no end to it,
no meaning in its multiples?
More wondrous
when nebulas were nebulous,
eagles sun kings
and stars profiles of the gods.
Feeling wind twist through darkness,
he lays back with open eyes,
waiting for the sun god
to bring earth back.