Blue Feather

Blue Feather

As the sun blows away from the east,

in the stripped tree by the far fence

the eagle breaks through,

too big, too bright

too blue, come carrying all

the questions of white weather, 

cold electric blue in all his parts.

He moves on the bare branch reflexively, restlessly,

a ruffling knife wind at his back full of every

promise of change and threat of frost,

pulling an azure flight feather

through his solitary note of yellow,

stiletto beak a drooping mask

in harlequin opposition.

Improbable of color and shorn of motion, he sits

in a stillness that is not repose,

a being of want and promise, his eye on

an oblivious thing, small and fat

hunkering at my feet, that one

of all my charges I've loved

but not too much.

The eagle watches from the border

of the breathing lands, as I stand my

half-hearted guard, his bright head cocked

to one side like a ragdoll’s flops,

his mouth unlatched, impatient,

his indigo eye kindling like a flare, burning

blue warning in the impending night.

His great wings draw up in clouds, 

shadows spread dark on the sky

crackling loud in the apricot sunset,

bent legs folding flowers under the storm.

His hoarse cry springs the feather, spinning

sudden and singular it hangs between us

centering the worlds.

Then he’s read me, all I am.

He jumps the wind, a flying bolt of blue gone

forever far from where the bars of arms draw in

and sleet falls on the sacrifice heartcovered

in my breast, safe 

from that one stray moment’s wish

to give it up to make the eagle stay.

May 2011

Posted for  OneShotWednesday   at the inimitable  OneStopPoetry 

Image: Electric Blue Feather, by tallmonkee on flickr

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