Like An Eagle

By Alec Addicott

Like an Eagle flying high

Wings stretched, soaring
Rock peaks jutting into the air
Like the teeth of an ancient jawbone
The sun blazing, burning, despairing
As an Eagle floats higher than even it

Snake slithers along the rusted surface
An Eagle swoops and catches it
In its talons
The color of the desert winds

Heat waves melt the horizon
A rough, unkind cactus penetrates the nothingness
A birdsong shatters the still
As the sun sails above the ground

A shriveled, leathered man
stands on a dune
His eyes are ablaze
See the determination in his piercing gaze?

As he fingers his own law
in a beat - up holster at his side
Waiting for something
Who knows?

Only a gliding Eagle
With its call resounding between
the sandstones as it gloats
over its doomed victim

A drop of crimson, clotting, wet blood
falls to the tan, shifting, dry ground from
the Eagle's dying prey
A flower springs forth from it, graceful

Like an Eagle