Tracks on Damp Sand

by Franco Pagnucci

  I remember deer leaping in the light.

  Early March—That Whistle

  Some say bald eagles

  lay eggs in early March,

  and we’d seen them,

  now and then, hauling sticks

  to the old nest,

  but I was out and looked up

  because I heard that whistle.

  He was on her, and ever since

  I’ve been mulling the fact

  that she must have whistled.

  Now a New Moon

  Now a new moon

  is on the rise,

  so we wait

  for the wild

  to come out,

  birds to come back.

  Cold holds night

  in its claws,

  but sun

  loosens the days.

  Dusk undresses

  in our windows.

  Sunny, with Wind and Thirty Degrees

  This morning it’s a world of birds,

  every corner, chirping or singing.

  The pair of bald eagles,

  rushing out, rushing back,

  whistling in a new fashion.

  Large and small woodpeckers

  have come with their mallets,

  and trees echo like xylophones.

  Robins, only a few days back,

  are in the woods, rustling leaves

  like drummers with brushes.

  Four Wild Turkeys Crossed the Road

  Walking business-like as turkeys do,

  they crossed the road in a line,

  their long skinny necks

  and small heads,

  leaning into the direction

  and pulling those dark,

  heavy bottoms,

  like train cars,

  legs churning

  over the snow,

  under the pines.

  We smiled

  and looked back.

  Black turkeys crossing the road

  in the gray bloated morning.

  The Wind Had Changed

  Sapsuckers drummed in the woods.

  You picked up sticks

  and brush in an air of pines.

  Then on a night,

  peepers called from the channel

  between the lakes,

  and you knew

  the angle of light had shifted;

  your mother’s grave on the hill

  would be warmer, too.

  Now the Bald Eagles Are So Solicitous of Each Other

  Something must be up.

  You can see how they stick close

  now, whistle and whistle,

  going and coming.

  Out of the blue,

  they’ll dive

  and drop, claws extended,

  into the top of the white pine.

  It’s how they’ll sit

  for a few minutes,

  one on the bare branch

  and facing west,

  the other on a branch

  alongside and facing east,

  before she hops

  down to the nest.

  It’s how their whistling

  rises, circling,

  then falls back,

  settling around them

  and on us and on our days

  and how we have to stop,

  constantly,

  and look out and look up.

  When He Came Back

  This morning, when the eagle came back,

  banking west, then gliding over the great pines,

  she began to whistle, as usual, from the nest,

  loud and almost squawking, her tail

  snapping, like two fingers, against the sticks of the nest,

  with her effort, but then another whistle

  joined in, too, though not as loud, and, I suppose,

  less sure, being new and unpracticed,

  yet, there, definitely there to be heard and counted

  while the male skimmed over the treetops.

  They’ll Go Off Together

  Three, four times a day now

  the bald eagles go off together

  for a circle and glide over Robinson Lake,

  though, surprisingly, they’re back in a minute,

  both whistling, it seems, greetings

  answered by a quieter, less shrill whistle

  from below, while she extends her great feet,

  lifts her great wings to her head,

  and plops down with a flurry of feathers

  onto the great clump of sticks in the center

  top of the white pine and the male lands

  and sits on the bare branch tip, like a symbol.

  From Below

  1.

  We walk, looking up,

  our heads full of clouds.

  How do we respond?

  A pair of bald eagles

  has nested in the great

  white pine back of our garage.

  And with all the whistling,

  now, you can understand

  if we’re a little on edge

  and less fun company

  as we try to avoid noises

  or any behavior out of routine.

  2.

  They do fly a little more driven,

  less free to glide

  where the winds go,

  now that we’ve heard

  a fainter whistle in answer,

  coming up from below.

  The Wind Vane

  When he sits on the top

  bare branch of the white pine,

  above their nest,

  he’s a guardian,

  a sentinel,

  a living Yankee wind vane.

  You can see the wind

  off the lake

  ruffle his white head feathers.

  He’s like us,

  then, for that moment,

  subject to the whirls

  and wiles of the wind,

  before he rises

  and sails on its every twist.

  Everyday We’re on the Lookout

  We’ve heard a third whistle coming from the nest,

  and we don’t want to miss the coming out.

  When we wake, we go to the windows.

  Outside, we walk with upturned faces, eyes

  on the tops or just above the trees. A fluttering,

  a half whistle rising, a shadow crossing our path

  is enough to make us change our direction.

  Yesterday both eagles lifted out of the white pine,

  circled the lake and came back.

  From inside the house, I followed their loop,

  window to window like a pellet

  in a hand spinner. When I went back

  toward the kitchen,

  dawn had lit the tops of the trees

  along the east bank of Birch Lake,

  as if they had suddenly stood up, the blood

  spinning, rushing to their heads like flames.

 

 

 
center>