Saturday, january 11 2025 10 am

excerpts from “you are here: poetry in the natural world” edited by ada limón

A Woman with a Bird by Victoria Chang

A bald eagle called out to another as magpies attacked their nest. Someone called it romantic. I believed her.

The magpies, the ferryman, God, the poets, everything seemed romantic in Alaska, where people breathe out

white birds. When I breathed, nothing came out. The eagles sat side by side and I wondered why. they

stayed long after the magpies had gone. At first, I thought the eagle was watching me. Then I realized the

eagle was my life watching me. The distance between my life and myself had become too far, Because of my

desirre to find away out of my life. When that happens, our breath comes out of another door. As if each day, I walked

into a door but came out of another door. I wonder what country my breath came out in. When the male

eagle flew off to a distant tree, the female didn’t follow. I felt something in my body attach and heard a

clicking noise. I had been holding my breath for decades, while others painted my breasts, one white, one brown.

In Alaska, my life was with me again, attached for now. I took photos of the birds to remind myself that the

unsettled feeling wasn’t caused by me, and could be solved by traveling somewhere cold.