Before the Eagle Returns

I am bound 

to this rock by words.

     By gray words, 

     loud words, 

     ugly words, 

     hungry, beautiful

     and captivating words.

They are the same words

the eagle devours.

     Awe-filled words,

     tattered words,

     beating words,

     alive words,

     and shiny words.

She plucks them from

my pulsing liver, pushing 

her talon down as her

beak tears back and to

the right; 

     gulping them down

     enslaved to the taking

     and the frenzy.

Through the jagged 

rip in my belly

     the stringy words,

     the fleshy words,

     the glistening words

     are pulled from me,

     again and again.

As if I would not have

given them up freely.

I do not hate the words

for their part;

     for they are music,

     they are poetry,

     they are song,

     they are wonder-filled myth

     and glorious story.

For they are the fire of the gods

I gave to man.

     Without regret,

     without shame,

     without consternation,

     without a backward glance

     or thought toward punishment.

Nor do I hate the bird

for what she does.

I am sustained by the words

that bind me, and are pulled 

out of me day after day,

after day.

They make me whole.

these gifts that sometime

bring me wounds.