Eagle's Journey

From the dark of the night to which we are born

That envelops and conceals as the hours grow long

To the pale blue of dawn as light casts forth its veils

In layers of color across the land,

From his perch in the great firs of age and strength

An eagle ruffles his feathers and takes flight

Stretching his wings in the fresh breeze of morning

Swooping between shadow and light,

Up past the mountains and into the sky

Into the clouds that gather and transform

Shifting phenomena of water drops that gather

Into a burgeoning storm,

And the winds band together and twisted howl

Churning the clouds and the currents in the sky

Throwing hail and sleet and rain in the muddling mist

Through which the eagle does fly,

Battered and tumbled and indubitably ruffled

Sodden and soaked with chill in the hollows of his bones

Buffeted by the storm he nonetheless perseveres

In the sky that has ever been his home,

When the storm has passed and the winds’ flow untangled

The eagle spirals down towards the mountains far below

Towards a gleaming turquoise lake that rose to lap the valleys

While the thunder roared in the lightning’s glow,

There are glints in the lake: silver flashes in the depths

The eagle tucks his wings in and dives

Through the sparkling surface gay and bright

Towards that for which he strives,

As light is scattered away the blue is deeper and darker

Til the color has given way to eternal night within the depths

Touched by the blood of fish and feather of the eagle

All on a single breath,

Up the eagle rises leaving the cold peace of the lake’s dark

For the joy of air and warm sunshine and the tumultuous sky

Beating his wings against the water from darkness into light

Hoisting his goal up high,

Upon a sturdy fir bough on a lake’s lately sunny shore

The eagle feasts on fish and surveys the mountain vale

And the pure blue sky with its white puffs of clouds

Realms of water and air in which he doth prevail.