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Eagles IfI told you I used to know the circular truth Ofthe void, that I have been all over it building My height receiving overlook And that my feathers were not Offeather-make, but broke from a desire to drink The rain before it falls or as it is falling: IfI were to tell you that the rise ofany free bird Is better the larger the bird is, And that I found myselfone ofthese Without surprise, you would understand That this makes ofair a thing that would be liberty Enough for any world but this one, And could see how I should have gone Up and out of all all ofit On feathers glinting Multitudinously as rain, as silica-sparks around One form with wings, as it is hammered loose From rock, at dead Ofclassic light: that is, at dead Oflight. Believe, too, While you're at it, that the flight ofeagles has For use, long muscles steeped only In escape, and moves through Clouds that will open to nothing Eagles / 43 I But it, where the bird leaves behind All sympathy: leaves The man who, for twenty lines Ofa new poem, thought he would not be shut From those wings: believed He could be going. I speak to you from where I was shook off: I say again, shook Like this, the words I had When I could not spread: When that bird rose Without my shoulders: Leave my unstretched weight, My sympathy grovelling In weeds and nothing, and go up from the human downbeat in my hand. Go up without anything Ofme in your wings, but remember me in your feet As you fold them. The higher rock is The more it lives. Where you take hold, f will take That stand in my mind, rock bird alive with the spiritlife ofheight, on my down-thousands Offathoms, classic Claw-stone, everything under. GilaBend Where aerial gunnery was, you think at first a cadaver On foot might get through Forty years after. Shots ofspace pelter back Offthe dead bullets; walking, you should brand, brand The ground but you don't: you leave Not a thing moving on a sand mountain Smashed flat by something that didn't know The Eagle's Mile / 432 ...

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