My third eagle-- an eagle pair so alike in their fate as to be
a single bird--
a few weeks ago at a small County Zoo in New Jersey,
they lived in a well-kept, what was it?
Habitat?
Cage?
How perspective changes depending on where you stand--
if you live inside or out, what you mean by territory.
The whole of which is enclosed by a special tangle-resistant
mesh.
At the center, was a high platform piled with sticks--
the makings of a nest the keepers started
but which not being mates--
friends, pals, yes, they got along fine--
the birds wouldn't finish.
Eagles don't much like platforms,
and their courtship displays require
high aerial loops, a clasping of talons, a plunge toward Earth,
and deft release.
Netting, as their keeper said, kills the mood.
Both were rehabilitation birds--
unintentionally shot, their vision was bad,
and their wings didn't heal thoroughly.
And they couldn't be released into the wild.
Or what would happen?
They'd die, which is, of course, what
happens to birds with lousy sight
and bad wings out in the world.
They can't hunt well.
They bump into things and get hit by trucks.
The longer I looked, in the rain and then humid sun,
the more I saw the decision to keep them alive at the zoo
wasn't their decision at all.
And then it was hard to see the birds
for the good they'd been done.
At the National Eagle Repository in Denver
where the bodies of all dead eagles
go, when not heading sunward, when not on a journey
to pierce the upper world, birds from all over the country
are collected, cataloged, and frozen.
It's illegal to keep a dead eagle, even if just come upon--
a victim of electrocution, shooting, trapping, or highway
accidents.
So if it's your practice to use eagle feathers in ceremonies,
to use talons in dances, or bones
or skulls in celebrations, if your intention is
to be a practicing Native American,
you must first petition the government
for the use of any eagle parts.
A bulletin put out by the US Fish
and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement
answers questions about the procedures for procuring.
Quote, "only enrolled members of federally recognized tribes
can obtain a permit from FWS authorizing them to receive
and possess eagle feathers from the repository
for religious purposes," unquote.
On the application, you must specify
whether you want a golden or bald eagle,
a mature or immature bird, a whole bird or specific parts,
or have no preference.
And to, quote, "make sure you request either a whole bird
or parts.
Do not ask for both," unquote.
"If part of the bird or its feathers
are missing, damaged, or broken, FWS staff
may add replacement parts from another bird
to make it complete.
The recipient is notified when this
is the case prior to shipping."
That was all a quote.
All of that was a quote.
There is also an approved ceremonies list,
though you're not required to name the religious ceremony
if doing so violates the sanctity of your belief.
Applicants are advised of the long waiting period for birds.
For the immature golden eagle, the most in demand,
it's at least five years.
There are over 5,000 people on the waiting
list for approximately the 1,000 eagles
the repository receives annually.
Other wait times include whole tail only, golden eagle, 4 to 4
and 1/2 years, whole tail only, bald eagle, 2 to 2
and 1/2 years, pair of eagle wings, approximately one
year, trunks, heads, and talons, on receipt of request.
The application is highly specific so as
to carefully dose out birds.
Quote, "each applicant can apply for only one whole eagle
or specific parts equivalent to one bird--
i.e. two wings, one tail, two talons at a time."
A bag of 20 miscellaneous eagle feathers
might include assorted bald or golden eagle feathers
of various sizes, such as primary, secondaries, tails
and plumes.
Quality may vary.
Applicants, quote, "may not customize orders."
That an allotment cannot be customized--
this is me-- that an allotment cannot be customized means take
what you're given--
like government cheese-- free, but who wants it?
Means make do with salvage--
the parts messed up in death--
burnt, crushed, poisoned, et cetera, or with the ersatz.
Real Legal Feathers, a company, sells turkey feathers
as a "great alternative" and claims
that you can wash, dry, and preen
the web back together just as you would
any other natural feather.
Perhaps-- and this seems like a reasonable conjecture after
reading the application and FAQs--
if there were a sudden scarcity of crosses,
if crosses were not legally available,
one could make do with an X maybe,
which is, after all, just a cross on its side,
a little tipsy and slightly askew, but squint
and tilt your head, and it's more or less the same form.
If feathers are earned through deeds,
if feathers are the deeds themselves as they
are to the Lakota, if the feather is the bird
and the eagle trapping sites are sacred,
and, by extension, a communally regulated act undertaken only
after intense prayer and fasting,
and if one must now apply to the government for feathers
and parts, how can the sacred proceed?
Flensed from feather, over-touched, bagged,
portioned out, not earned or freely chosen
with no words spoken over it, no tradition directing
or participating, how will the spirit do its work?
If what's as holy as the actual bird is the getting
of the bird, if what is holy needs for expression--
a season, death, an occasion--
than the filling out of forms, and before that even,
the freezing, thawing, picking, packing of eagles upends,
recomposes the shape of holy time.
Made to wait, the holy phrase.
Daily time wears it away.
The following of directions and checking of boxes
confers no story, no morning of anticipation,
no suspension of thought while hunting, no flare of sun
before it drops low, wind lifting eagle,
and soft wings sound ceasing, warmth of body
and heft in the arms, sense of life and rim of breath not gone
but hovering, entering, saying.
And this is just me imagining the calling down, the getting,
the gathering of an eagle.
Out there, the real story is missing.
Of a carved, white, wooden bird, an elaborate cutout
art practiced in Baltic countries,
John Berger writes regarding its form, its slightness,
austerity, complexity.
Quote, "one is looking at a piece of wood
that has become a bird.
One is looking at a bird that is somehow more than a bird.
One is looking at something that has
been worked with a mysterious skill and kind of love."
Not so much a symbol of a bird, but an effort,
quote, "to translate a message received from a bird."
A teasing out of qualities.
Not an imitation but a glimpse, an attempt, as his language
too is an attempt.
Each repetition of one is looking, one is looking,
a return to the beginning-- a trying out again,
a reconstituting in different angles of light
so that by multiple views one might draw closer to.
The birds, not a symbol, but an expression of something
hard to catch hold of.
Feathers of wood, a tree lofted in breeze
and lifted and launched, a tree becoming
the thing it sheltered.
A bird expressing blossoming.
The qualities of one becoming the qualities of another--
a variation, in one thing many.