1.

For the seabirds

Of Spectacle Island, I watch

Fear come

With a shadow —

Seven foot wingspan,

White head, hooked yellow beak,

And 6-inch talons.

For us

On earth’s larger island

Fear haunts in many guises

Endlessly reinventing itself

For each of us

In the shadow of

Something long forgotten,

Imprinted in our genes, cautioned by our mother,

Remembered from

A story we once heard about what happened in this

Or another long-ago life,

To someone not even us

For us on earth’s island fear comes with a shadow

On an x-ray, a six-inch knife, an arm from the right,

A scream in the night.

2.

Wizened wings warp ragged rocks,

A mad flurry of filigreed feathers below, as

Fifty-one screaming gulls levitate.

One pissed-off Cerulean Warbler trilling in mad pursuit, altitude

Above, the back of Eagle.

© Susan Lynn Gesmer

Flying Above Eagle, Cape Rosier, Maine

2007