Cornelius

Scavenger with piercing symbolic eyes 

Winged American freedom caged

Cornelius on his perch up high

One wing catawampus, askew, deranged

In the late winter morning wind that blows cold

My fingers grow wooden, entirely numb

But Cornelius’s call cuts through silence bold

My words fail me now and I’m struck dumb

Later a train clatters right through Mountsberg

And swallows all other sounds in a whirlpool

I play my recording to affirm what I heard 

Something inside unraveled from the spool

wild cacophonous bark of an eagle

sound unsettling, concurrently regal