The Eagle-Eyed Poets Poem by Denis Martindale

Each poet starts on a learning curve until the vocabulary skills improve, and the editing does, too. The poet begins as the thoughtful thought-creator, seeking to establish a starting point, before writing in earnest, as a poet. The act of creation being controlled for its eventual purposes later on. Or it can be as free as a bird, flying here and there, without a single worry in the world or above it.

Imagine the eagle with its special eyesight, being best served to focus on its main intentions at that time. It knows that the other eagles can fly, so it flaps its wings, too. It knows that its wings are not strong enough yet. So it tests when the wings can help make it fly. When they are just as they should be, and fully ready, willing and able.

When those wings are strong enough, the nest is no longer the eagle's home. The sky is now that home, that everything and its very own space in the Universe. We are not likely to see hundreds of eagles in flight at once. They each seek their own space and to do their own thing.No longer is that nest a challenge. The world awaits.

It is the same with poets who would seek to fly and to soar like the eagle. No longer is that first poem the all-important start for the poems of the future. Life itself is the learning curve. Eagles can easily curve, to go in a different direction. Poets explore, too, and then store up their memories to share their future blessings.

As for the eagle, the act of flight is now second nature, and the twists and turns and the glides and dives are all understood by now. That majestic bird needs no teacher, no guide. That bird is all it is meant to be.

When the poet becomes the great poet, rather than the good poet, that is when greatness gathers, just as gold dust upon the eagle's wings sets it apart. So why dismiss the beginning of a poet's story, or the middle, or the end?

The poet earns a place, a special space in the Universe. A sense of destiny can dominate a poet's lifetime and the legacy that follows into eternity. Whether a hundred poems get written, or a thousand poems get written, God knows which poems are truly the best. God gets to appreciate such poetry, even if Mankind never gets to see all those poems. So if a poet creates with God in mind, then who knows what wonderful poetry awaits? After all, God did not make Mankind without reason. Nor did He leave Mankind without the voice of reason.


Denis Martindale. September 2020.