Steven Harvey

Like eagle rounding out the morning/

Inside us./ We pray that it will be done/

In beauty./ In beauty.—Joy Harjo

I’ve never seen an eagle rounding out the morning inside me, but I have been surprised by broad-winged hawks bursting overhead at dawn from the woods behind my house, their tandem arcs inscribing half circles on the sky before dipping below the tree line, the “true circle of motion” completed 

its fishing interrupted for now. 

And alone once I saw a red-tail mantling in the grass under theclothesline in my backyard, its body and wings shrouding the prey, wingspan nearly as wide as my outstretched arms. I stood there for as long as it ate, its shoulders hunched and body quivering above the package of flesh, the crimson tail spread in full display

above my house hoping to see the blessing that the poet prayed for, the circular hovering high overhead

Steven Harvey

STEVEN HARVEY is the author of The Beloved Republic which won The Wandering Aengus Press Award and will be published January 20, 2023. His other books include a memoir, The Book of Knowledge and Wonder, a book-length essay, Folly Beach, and three collections of personal essays: A Geometry of Lilies, Lost in Translation, and Bound for Shady Grove. He is a founding faculty member at the Asland University MFA, a Contributing Editor at Rover Teeth, and the creator of The Humble Essayist website.