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.
 

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