THIS BIRD HAS FLOWN

A Prose Poem

by Howie Good

President Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia concluded their summit in Alaska on Friday without declaring agreement on any issue, much less the one Mr. Trump said was at the top of his agenda, ending the war in Ukraine. —The New York Times, August 15. 2025

The other day I saw a bald eagle for only the second time in my life. It soared over the treeline on the far side of the marsh. Almost in the same instant that I recognized it from its distinctive silhouette, it was gone, our national bird, symbol of strength and freedom. We are entering the last days of summer. Some of the plants I planted in the spring never grew, and the plants that did grow have begun dying. I dread the coming winter, a hulking, red-eyed monster roving streets of blackened ruins.

Howie Good is a professor emeritus at SUNY New Paltz whose poetry collections include The Dark and Akimbo, available from Sacred Parasite, a Berlin-based publisher. 

EAGLE ELEGY

by Susan J. Wurtzburg

Once an endangered species, bald eagles, including at Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota, came roaring back to life. They now confront a new foe: avian flu. —The Washington Post, October 5, 2024

Iconic American bald eagle, feathered vigilance,

predatory golden gaze far-focused 

across the valley, where coyotes jump-kill 

mice and voles. Fur-encased small prey,

meaty morsels for white-headed sea eagles.

 

Yellow hooked beaks prominent on the Great Seal,

where bald eagles unfurl their wings, a defiant

symbol of the USA. Environmental laws nurtured

these raptors, saved from harms: DDT, hunters,

lead bullets. Biologists lauded their soaring story.

 

Exaltation for these wide-winged fliers slumps 

with the advent of avian influenza. 2021: year

that birds begin to fall from the sky, falling, falling,

across the USA. Now, 2024: talons clench, beaks twist,

wings flail: collapse of iconic bald eagles widespread.

 

Emblematic birds, do you auger an apocalypse?

 

Susan J. Wurtzburg received 1st place in the Land of Enchantment Award, 2024, the Save Our Earth Award, 2024, and the Elizabeth M. Campbell Poetry Award, 2022, and was a semi-finalist in the Crab Creek Review Poetry Competition 2022, and in the Naugatuck River Review's 14th Narrative Poetry Contest, 2022. She was a Community Poet in the Spring 2023 Poetry Workshop, Westminster College, Salt Lake City. Wurtzburg is a Commissioned Artist in Sidewalk Poetry: Senses of Salt Lake City, 2024. Her poetry book, Ravenous Words, with Lisa Lucas will appear in spring, 2025.

AMERICAN ICON

by Lylanne Musselman

Image source: Terapeak

I saw a bald eagle today
soaring back and forth,
sewing the edge of a
pure, fleecy cloud as if
it were being threaded
from the top of his snow
white head to the tip
of his ivory tail feathers.

I imagined he was quilting
a fresh, new day for Americans,
or embroidering a body bag
to collect the fragile bones
of this once strong,
colorful, united tapestry.              

Lylanne Musselman is an award winning poet, playwright, and artist. Her work has appeared in Pank, Flying Island, The Tipton Poetry Journal, Poetry Breakfast, TheNewVerse.News, among others, and many anthologies.  In addition, Musselman has twice been a Pushcart Nominee. Musselman is the author of three chapbooks, with a fourth forthcoming: Weathering Under the Cat, from Finishing Line Press. She also co-authored Company of Women: New and Selected Poems (Chatter House Press, 2013). Presently, she teaches writing at IUPUI, and online for Ivy Tech Community College.