Eagle In New Mexico

TOWARDS the sun, towards the south-west
A scorched breast.
A scorched breast, breasting the sun like an answer,
Like a retort.

An eagle at the top of a low cedar-bush
On the sage-ash desert
Reflecting the scorch of the sun from his breast;
Eagle, with the sickle dripping darkly above.

Erect, scorched-pallid out of the hair of the cedar,
Erect, with the god-thrust entering him from below,
Eagle gloved in feathers
In scorched white feathers
In burnt dark feathers
In feathers still fire-rusted;
Sickle-overswept, sickle dripping over and above.

Sun-breaster,
Staring two ways at once, to right and left;
Masked-one
Dark-visaged
Sickle-masked
With iron between your two eyes;
You feather-gloved
To the feet;
Foot-fierce;
Erect one;
The god-thrust entering you steadily from below.

You never look at the sun with your two eyes.
Only the inner eye of your scorched broad breast
Looks straight at the sun.

You are dark
Except scorch-pale-breasted;
And dark cleaves down and weapon-hard downward curving
At your scorched breast,
Like a sword of Damocles,
Beaked eagle.

You've dipped it in blood so many times
That dark face-weapon, to temper it well,
Blood-thirsty bird.

Why do you front the sun so obstinately,
American eagle?
As if you owed him an old old grudge, great sun: or an old,
old allegiance.

When you pick the red smoky heart from a rabbit or a light-
blooded bird
Do you lift it to the sun, as the Aztec priests used to lift
red hearts of men?

Does the sun need steam of blood do you think
In America, still,
Old eagle?

Does the sun in New Mexico sail like a fiery bird of prey in
the sky
Hovering?

Does he shriek for blood?
Does he fan great wings above the prairie, like a hovering,
blood-thirsty bird?

And are you his priest, big eagle
Whom the Indians aspire to?
Is there a bond of bloodshed between you?

Is your continent cold from the ice-age still, that the sun is
so angry?
Is the blood of your continent somewhat reptilian still,
That the sun should be greedy for it?

I don't yield to you, big, jowl-faced eagle.
Nor you nor your blood-thirsty sun
That sucks up blood
Leaving a nervous people.

Fly off, big bird with a big black back,
Fly slowly away, with a rust of fire in your tail,
Dark as you are on your dark side, eagle of heaven.

Even the sun in heaven can be curbed and chastened at last
By the life in the hearts of men.
And you, great bird, sun-starer, heavy black beak
Can be put out of office as sacrifice bringer.

Analysis (ai): The poem adopts a confrontational tone between observer and eagle, framing their standoff as mythic yet charged with ideological tension. This stance differs from the author’s more lyrical or introspective nature poems, favoring interrogation over reverence.

Symbolic Framework: The eagle and sun are not merely animals or celestial bodies but emblems of ritual, power, and sacrificial tradition. Unlike the author’s earlier symbolic use of animals as manifestations of primal life force, here they are politicized, entangled with conquest and colonial memory.

Cultural Critique: References to Aztec ritual and "blood-thirsty" imagery situate the poem within early 20th-century Western fascination with Indigenous practices as exotic or violent. Yet it reframes this lens by questioning the continuity of sacrifice, implicating both nature and nationalism in cycles of bloodshed.

Modernist Engagement: Written in the late 1920s, the poem aligns with modernist disruptions of myth but resists fragmentation in favor of sustained rhetorical questioning. Its long, accumulating lines contrast with the author’s more rhythmically restrained earlier works, embracing a prophetic cadence.

Less-Discussed Angle: Rather than portraying the American West as a realm of renewal—as many of the author’s travel writings do—the poem frames it as psychically unresolved, haunted by ancient and ongoing violence. It critiques not just religious sacrifice but the very idea of nature as inherently sacred or redemptive.

Author’s Evolution: This piece marks a shift from the author’s earlier focus on individual desire and bodily experience toward a broader critique of cultural mythologies. It belongs to a group of late works that reflect disillusionment with spiritual absolutism and the dangers of symbolic projection.

Relation to Era: While many modernist poets turned inward or embraced irony, this poem revives the prophetic voice, using myth not for personal insight but social warning. Its direct address and moral urgency diverge from the detached aestheticism common in 1920s poetry.

Formal Approach: Repetition and anaphora structure the poem’s incantatory rhythm, functioning less as lyric device than rhetorical pressure. The absence of stanza breaks mirrors the single, unrelenting gaze it describes.

Stance on Power: The final lines reject both solar and avian dominance, asserting human agency against natural and symbolic tyranny. This humanist closure is rare in the author’s oeuvre, where nature often surpasses human will.

Geopolitical Subtext: Though set in New Mexico, the poem subtly interrogates American identity through the eagle—a national emblem—casting it not as a symbol of freedom but of complicity in sacrificial systems. This subversion contrasts with contemporaneous patriotic uses of the same image.

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