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      August 31, 2022The Deluxe EditionAlexandra Umlas

      This morning’s stories include a bald eagle
      about to board a Southwest plane, his handler
       
      taking him through the TSA checkpoint
      in North Carolina, him flexing his wings, as if to say
       
      look what I can do. I can fly and I can fly—
      Some things still surprise us, this Eagle’s flight,
       
      how delicious my breakfast tastes today, green
      olives stuffed with almonds and fresh-striped
       
      figs, their skins filled with August-ripeness,
      and Fagles’ translation of Homer’s The Iliad open
       
      to page 265, Achilles, always dying, and also always
      living, speaking (again), two fates bear me on
       
      to the day of death. One, a journey home
      with no glory. Another, a journey away from life
       
      but with everlasting glory—Oh the choices
      we must make in any life! And I wonder
       
      what Homer would have to say about an eagle
      on a plane, the pages he might have filled today
       
      with wings being winged in an aluminum miracle,
      everything so different and everything the same,
       
      how we still get from one place to the next
      or don’t, how an eagle is even now an eagle
       
      and an omen that tells us there is always something
      new to see—open your wings and look—

      from Poets Respond

      Alexandra Umlas

      “I’m grateful to books and to the authors of books, who show us that we are not alone in our vacillation between delight and despair—and that delight often wins! Or, if it doesn’t win, it at least surprises us into momentary joy. I found myself delighted (and perplexed) by the idea of this Eagle on a plane, who is now also on a page, which is its own kind of journey.”

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