PEACE OFFERING
An eagle floating, feathers glint like
burnished brass above upcanyon green,
perhaps the same who claimed the breech,
coyote at bay and she, a black and helpless
silhouette under the tree where she labored –
a pitiful strain of motherhood to be admired.
I follow my eyes like the shadow I was
behind my father, tried to match his stride,
always listening, then asking more.
A few old men still remember the boy,
breaking clods behind the tractor with little
boots, or behind the four and five year-old
steers from Mexico, right off the train
across the bridge and up the road until
belly-high in heaven. But they’re not
my eyes anymore, I cannot own
the current that flows between us –
the peace that connects all things.