Eagle at nine o'clock    
by Lynn Pattison                                                                                        

fast and low.  Dead silence falls along this stretch
of river's edge, chipmunk and frog statue, still as stone,
while he  passes, and disappears—not a wing

beat or rustle in water.  He can dive deep and stroke
against the current but no explosion of bird with fish breaks
the surface.  After I've turned back to planting I see

his shadow racing ahead of him (he must fly into the sun
when he hunts) and look up. A snake writhing in his talons, he sails
toward the nest, that great flagship, great castle of sticks,

site of this prey's sky burial.  If the snake is still alive,
if it's not scenes from his own short life passing before his eyes,
then I am the last thing he sees, gawking,

in my green yard, spineless, bleating my surprise. 
The only one in this fleeting triangulation
who finds it hard to believe.

 
Previously published: River Oak Review, 2008

Lynn Pattison divides her time between her home in southwest Michigan and her place on the Pigeon River in the North. Her favorite part of the Michigan/Canadian border is the North Channel. Her work has appeared in The Notre Dame Review, Harpur Palate, and Pinyon Poetry.