High Sierra Topix

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.


Alfred Lord Tennyson


I loved this poem the first time I read it, and it's so easily memorized that it has stayed with me for probably forty five years. I've been lucky enough to see quite a few eagles, especially when spending summers traveling and working on the coast of south-eastern and southern AK. I was reminded of the feeling eagles can give us by the words of Paul- our "commonloon.":

Whenever I see an Eagle in the backcountry, it's always very spiritual.

Very nice poem Harlem, thanks for posting. I saw two eagles in the sierra this year, one at Silver lake in the GTW and the other at South Fork lake in the Cottonwood drainage. Who knows, it could have been The same bird given their range and the fire raging in the GTW at that time.