Just a mile east of Blair,
eight miles west of the Missouri River,
right there on the bank of Peter’s Creek
where the bottoms meet the stream,
an old, dead sycamore rises up:
above the fields, the crops, the brush, 
almost as high as the bluffs.

Its bare branches long ago
lost their gleam.
Long sheaths of bark peeled off
and fell into the weeds and grass beneath.
Its lower limbs stand too far from the ground for climbing
and it’s almost useless now for shade.

But just about perfect for the pair of eagles
that made their nest there several years back.
This year, they hatched and raised a pair.
I’d see them there right often back in early summer,
heads at first barely visible above the rim of the nest.
Then see them on the branches.

A time or two, in driving by,
I’d see all four of them:
adults on the upper branches
and the young ones lower.

And then, they all were gone.

I’m not familiar enough with the ways of eagles
to know whether they spent the summer
tracking along the river,
scanning the smaller lakes and ponds,
living on the hunt and hanging out in their summer home
somewhere over in Missouri,
maybe up at Squaw Creek.
Maybe they all headed up to Minnesota.

And then, in the last week of November,
heading over to Saint Joe,
I looked back over toward the timber,
and saw one alone on the highest branch of that old tree,
glorious in late afternoon sun.

Later, on my way back home,
I looked again as I neared the last bend before Blair.
I could barely see the shape jutting just above the nest,
head and shoulders cresting above the edge:
a single eagle alone in the coming dark.

I couldn’t help wondering about the rest,
whether they were out and all safely on their own.
And wondering whether that big, jagged nest
feel pretty much the same
as an old empty room with unused couch and chairs
where it seems
the children hardly ever come home again.


H. Arnett
11/6/23