The Point

by Karenne Wood

In autumn we crept down a mulched path

             to the bank where cattails shone, bulrushes

                          concealing scarlet flags of the blackbirds.

The forest: humid scent of leaf-mold,

              skittering of squirrels, the old buck’s track

                   toward a copse of knotted cedars.

I wanted to believe it wouldn’t end

              and stepped behind you soundlessly

                   like one of the spirits who inhabit

these woods. We reached the blind,

              finally, and trained our field glasses

                    until a few white spots gleamed—

eagles’ heads against pines—there, on the ridge.

            Then, above us, one rose, and I held my breath.

                There’s a furious sound— seven feet of wing

feathers displacing the air. What remains

             as it ascends but a repetitious longing

                  and the silence that follows departure?

Wind for days, and then frost. As I walked

              the trail without you, my shoes crushed

                   a lace of ice. Every eagle was gone.

Once I held one in my sights until its shape

              blurred—the horizon overtook it, and the haze.

                  I scanned but could not locate the vanishing point.