Invitation to Poetry: Clear-Eyed

June 9, 2008 · by Christine

Our Twentieth Poetry Party!  I select an image and suggest a title and invite you to respond with your poems, words, reflections, quotes, song lyrics, etc. Leave them in the comments or email me and I’ll add them to the body of the post as they come in along with a link back to your blog if you have one (not required to participate!) I’ll add your contributions all week and then I will draw a name at random on Saturday morning from everyone who participates and will send the winner a copy of my newest zine Season by the Sea: A Contemporary Book of Hours when it is back from the printers in another week or so.

Feel free to take your poem in any direction and then post the image and invitation on your blog and encourage others to come join the party! (a blog is definitely not required to participate!)

I photographed the image below last summer on Vancouver Island at a Raptor Sanctuary. There is something so powerful about eagles and they are known for strength and vision.  What in your life do you feel this kind of clarity about? Or is there something for which you would like a clearer vision?

*****

Practicing zazen –
now the camera has become
my meditation cushion!

-kigen

*****

Clear eyed

Oh Grandmother Eagle,
riding the thermal
currents high, higher.

Your sharp sight slowly
fading, your sinews
tough, still powerful.

How much longer will you
soar, until you fold
your outstretched wings

forever?

-Tess at Anchors and Masts

*****

Sacred Eagle, Our Mediator with God:
Please forgive me
For the feather that I stole from your land
To mail to my friend.
Karen was dying
And she needed your
Clarity and Strength.

-Suz Reaney

*****

Listen

The eagle knows.
Watchful guardian
of the west.
We cannot escape his gaze.

The eagle sees
as rivers run dry and
wild lands shrink.
He is the look-out.

The eagle remembers
this land from long days past
when people tred
softly upon it.

The eagle teaches.
Somber and still.
No one is off
the hook.

The eagle warns
with his sharp,
shrill call.
But do we listen?

His voice echoes
off canyon walls.
Other creatures and
the wind pay heed.

-Pam McCauley

*****

on this particular morning
when so many eyes are blind
and too many hands are groping
beneath the weight of fog
and growing fear
of ever looking but not seeing

i linger
inside
the wealth of this solitary moment of mystery
which makes room for understanding-

the Voice that breaks the cedars
is always singing
the exile home to wholeness.

-Laure

*****

Eagle Haven

When I see you with such clarity,
images behind you fade
and I am captured by the
round perfection of your eye,
the lacy feathers of your neck,
firmly scalloped scales of your body,
deceptive in their soft fragility,
the decisive sharpness of your oversized
beak from which comes my defense and provision;
symbols of your maternal majesty
stop my breath in the shadow of
a still moment when
we hold each other bound;
pinion me.

-Christine Eleanor Merritt

*****

Far seer, soarer,
eagle brother
If only I could fly with you
Share your vision
Fly on your free wings.

Instead, myopic,
earthbound
I close my eyes, slip my skin
and dance with you
in the Creator’s light.

-Anne Sims at Stories and Faith

*****

Is this the eagle
that took my soul
like the vol not seen?

Is this the bird
happy at the thought
that all seen is his?

Is this the winged one
that went leg-deep
in Cresent lake
to secure a salmon?

I am pleased
that if this bird
stole my soul
it is varital in its
acts of selection.

-Tom Delmore

*****

“as a bird soars high
in the free holding of the wind,
clear of the certainty of ground,
opening the imagination of wings
into the grace of emptiness
to fulfill new voyagings,
may your life awaken
to the call of its freedom.” 

-John O’Donohue from “To Bless the Space Between Us”

(submitted by lucy)

*****

In this valley
the only way out is up –
blue sanctuary;
on crystal clear creek water
a feather floating through the clouds.

-b’oki.

*****

O strong rider
of winds and currents
I have tried
many times
to capture
the essence of you
in word
and picture…

majestic,
clear sighted,
noble,
stuff of dream and ledgend

you symbolise strength,
hope for the weary,

…and yet you gaze
holds me,
challenges me
to new heights,
to discover new resources
within…

teach me your ways…

-Sally Coleman at Eternal Echoes

*****

soaring high above
no sound distracts my Father’s voice
fly on, wings of change

-Deb at An Unfinished Symphony

*****

Vision

Your stillness masks your heart
beating with love or fear.
Your steady gaze
reveals nothing of the
distance you can comprehend.

Won’t you drop your mask?
Won’t you respond to wind
blowing everywhere, to tears
flowing from people all around,
to light startling you,
transforming you,
drawing you into a space
your fluid body
can’t resist moving through?

-Theresa Walker

*****

Vision 

On a clear day his eyes
see for miles, the slightest
movement there below; a mouse
among the tiger colored grass,
heavy with grain
and promise, or salmon,
pink and dappled against
the scaled pebbles of river-bed
moving like quick silver.
Hanging there, on thermals
so high we all fade to nothing,
and into everything,
can he see Truth?
Do those eyes watch
as men fight, over a patch
of trampled ground and mourn
the emptiness of wasted
mouse lives?
From a thousand feet
does he drink the Spirit
of the future, and guess
where our path goes?
Into the darkness, or out
from under the clouds
to lay on our back in
sunlit grass, watching
him soar? If we could fly
with such vision, would we
ever choose the dark
of rough churned soil,
salted and bare, over
warm earth full of tiger
striped shadows and the tiny
heartbeats of our brothers.

-Tandaina at Snow on Roses

*****

Knowing nothing about you I visited around the vast world wide web and found out a few facts. At http://www.cvm.umn.edu/raptor/info/baldeagle.html  I learnt that you and your kind were formerly distributed across North America, but you are now limited to breeding in Alaska, Canada, the northern Great Lakes states, Florida, and the Pacific Northwest. You are an amazing construction worker, building large stick nests (sometimes weighing over a ton) that are usually about six feet in diameter and more than six feet tall near the top of the largest trees near a river or lake. You eat fish that you catch yourself, or find dead, or pirate from other birds. Road-killed deer is a special delicacy that puts you at risk of being hit by motor vehicles. On July 9 last year (2007) you were removed from the endangered species list.
From http://www.answers.com/topic/accipitridae-1 I learnt that you have a big family and a long whakapapa.  Names like Kite, or Hawk signal a relationship.  Your family is found in the fossil record 30-50 million years ago.  Your family is Accipitridae, of the suborder Accipitres, in order  Falconiformes of the class Aves.  Members of your family live all over the globe, yet you have no obvious relatives among the other birds; and scientists don’t even agree that all members of your family are closely related to each other. Maybe you have just grown to look alike because you need similar characteristics to survive in similar habitats. 
And then I found this brilliant video clip of your distant cousin Kahu

And so I write

Bald Eagle
Haliaeetus leucocephalus
I’d like to know:
How does it feel
to be removed
from the endangered list?
Is it a relief?
Do you rejoice in your resilience,
that you have overcome
the powers of destruction?
Are vulnerable children
easier to protect than endangered ones?
Do you worry less
when you leave them in their treetop mansion
and go fishing for their breakfast?
Does it restore to you
the land that was yours for millennia?
Or make it any easier
to live within the confines
enforced by the invaders
who destroy your way of being?

Bald Eagle
Haliaeetus leucocephalus
Congratulations
You have turned around the forces
gathered against you.
You have found a mate
and continued your line.
You have done well.
And some humans have helped.

Bald Eagle
Haliaeetus leucocephalus
Remind us please
that we cannot fully congratulate ourselves
for this minute step
in the right direction
We cannot ever restore
your true entitlement.
We have gone too far for that.
Please accept our contrition
as we come to realise
that our way of life
has so limited yours.

We rejoice in your presence
Above, beyond and beside us
Inspiring us to persist
In the face of all that would overwhelm
To make a home in the highest places
To find strength for ourselves
To secure a future for our young
To catch and find and even to scavenge
The things that will sustain
To fly high
And see our shadow
Rest lightly
on the world below.

-Mavis at Set the Bird Free

*****

Predator

Predator.
This is the name I know you by,
This is how I define you.
Like self-loathing, you corrode my heart,
stripping me of the earth beneath my feet,
feeding me to myself.
I am caught in your talons, afraid.

Predator, symbol of a militaristic nation,
you corrode my heart and I resist you at every turn,
yet you hunt me down, down the rivers and rivulets,
down the memories of seismic misunderstandings,
down the trembling fear of one who waits
for a blow, an arm flung in rage.

Predator, symbol of fierce pride and
source of great adulation, I do not know you.
I ask you now, introduce yourself beyond my categorization.
Your heart’s desire is to feed your nestlings.
I know we have that in common,
so let me call you by your name, at last.

-Martha Louise Harkness

*****

Eagle eyes
searching
seeking
finding
prey
from miles away
you see
you fly
you catch
your supper
and fly back home
to feed your young
fledglings
who will one day
fly like you,
proud and strong
soaring above
the earth
in the splendor
of the sky brilliance
so close to God
may we soar with
your wings in prayer
so close to God
with you

-Susie at Reconnecting to the Truth

*****

-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts

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