Every Easter vacation my mother took my brother, sister, to visit my grandparents in Las Cruces, New Mexico. It was a magical place with wonderful words like mesquite, chapparal, cottonwood, chile, pecan, and mesa. During April, National Poetry Month, we are posting a poem a day. If you would like to suggest one, please email it in.

Shadows passed over the mesa . . . , by Gary Young

Shadows passed over the mesa, and I saw six eagles sail across the
valley. They rode thermals until they were almost out of sight,
then dove, and swung back in circles over my head. The air seemed
insufficient to their size—one eagle is enough to fill the sky. Two
of the birds veered toward another, and when they met, shook their
open beaks and tumbled for a moment before swinging back into
an easy glide. They made graceful, abrupt turns, and when they did,
the sun hit their backs like a mirror and reflected a fierce copper
flash. The sky behind them was so severe that spots of white light
began to dance in my field of vision. I don’t think I could have
watched them any longer if they’d stayed, but they drifted off, with
no other purpose, it seemed, than to fly.

You can find a complete list of poems published to date here.