Gliding wild above a cold, churning sea
that roils, crashes, thunders, and hurls spray
over the gloomy shores and mist-wreathed trees,
is the eagle, taciturn bird of prey.
Over dank sands, on frosty winds it flies—
through icy sheets of foul, sleeting weather
that mantle the beach in a leaden shawl—
into the leafless, witchy trees of fall,
where it roosts awhile to preen its feathers.
Ravens croak, and barred owls soar through the sky.
The eagle coils, leaps, wings through twilight’s pall.
On frigid thermals the bald eagle flies,
wheeling through the squally, wintry weather
watching whitecapped seas with menacing eye,
then bolting, like lightning striking heather—
its grim wings cocked, its bearing primeval,
its aspect awful—toward the cheerless bay.
There the eagle, with savage sorcery,
magics a salmon from the heaving sea.
Through the sleet, the fish is borne away,
wriggling in sharp talons raptorial,
to a high, cold, windswept, bone-filled eyrie.
