Many thanks to Frank on dVerse for giving us this wonderful subject of eagles for our bi-weekly haibun.

Eagles, a Haibun

They were called George and Martha, aptly enough, by the Woodrow Wilson bridge workers who first “discovered” them. But for several years, five days a week, I would drive by the tall stand of trees where their nest overlooked a bay of the Potomac River. I’m sure that others like me had seen them well before the construction workers but realized that the eagle pair would thrive without attention.

Sometimes the nest would be occupied on my morning trip or one of the pair would be sentry on a nearby branch, surveying for breakfast or intruders. Sometimes I would see them in flight, soaring fiercely above the river.

And then more construction, a new multi-use entertainment facility that would occupy most of the land east and south of the bay. The planners would leave George and Martha’s tree untouched as well as nearby trees, but George and Martha understood the neighborhood was changing. Time to leave.

Gray slate sky
black wings catch a thermal.
Frost rims the shore.

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I gave a simpler ending to George and Martha’s nesting than what actually happened.