Companion to an Untold Story

Z, omega, taw

260 Z, omega, taw. The shoreline of Lake Huron near the tip of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula is the haunt of bald eagles, attracted by the joint presence of forest for nests and lake for prey, and perhaps by the common winds to ride on. On that shore I have spotted only juveniles, whose plumage lacks the white cap and tail that mark the mature birds. They are fully adult in size, however, and of a brown so dark that from a ground-bound view it appears black, with strips of white on the underwing, mottled irregularly as if by disease or rot. More ominous than the imperious national symbol with its snowcapped head, these giant flying shadows are like raven heralds sent for us by death.110 Some authorities say the eagles see four times as well as a person with perfect vision, some say eight times as well, but I can’t comprehend what it would be to possess such powerful eyes. It is said that they can spot prey a mile away. They can traverse the shore and fly from sight in seconds, but at certain moments near dusk the treetops will unfold a dark-bodied shape with wings as big as a man, its talons and beak an unliving sheen, who pumps the empty light and floats to pause on the axis of my head. He suspends himself on unbeating wings two 110 “Heraldos negros que nos manda la Muerte” (César Vallejo, The Complete Poetry, ed. and trans. Clayton Eshleman [Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007], 24). 261 hundred feet above the beach, so close that I can catch his rigid eyes, whose stare has a strength I cannot live in. As he hovers above and I stand under, he peers into every flaw and wrinkle on my face. His eyes shoot arrows of adrenalin into my heart and summon me to their world and inhuman view. Within his gaze, though not in fear, the heartpound says, My body-strength is gone and I am awe. I see the sublime, but more, the sublime sees me. It is the closest I will get in this life to the mystic’s vision of the rose and corn of paradise.111 Or to a final man with rigorous eyes who says, Yes, this is my time. You will understand. 111 “In form then of a pure white rose the saintly host was shown to me” (Dante, Paradiso, trans. Charles S. Singleton [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975], 21:1–2). See Apartment, Bathroom (1), Colma, Disposition of the body, Domestic past, Garage sale, Gas, Roses, “Secretary of Death,” 1635 San Andres Street, and The underlying, unifying principle of a life. “Although the Master of Life did not allow Lalawethika to enter heaven, he was allowed to gaze upon a paradise, which he described as ‘a rich, fertile country, abounding in game, fish, pleasant hunting grounds and fine corn fields’” (R. David Edmunds, The Shawnee Prophet [Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985], 33). ...