An Eagle Rose

It’s hard to imagine that I originally picked Philadelphia as the place to complete my undergraduate degree, as my love for nature has grown more and more. “An Eagle Rose” was written in the immediate aftermath of an encounter with a bald eagle. Aside from the obvious and tired analogy of an eagle’s representation of freedom, I was envious of the bird’s “carefree control”. It flew with a kind of grace that I had never seen before. As I explain in the poem, I tried to walk closer and capture a picture of it, but it would fly even further away each time I pulled out my phone camera.

Thus, I decided to savor the moment and respectfully observe the great bird from a distance. When I finally lost sight of it completely, I wrote the poem to make up for the picture that I never managed to obtain. It was a lovely way to remember the experience, and it brings me joy to recount the memory each time I read the poem.