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On Seeing Haliaeetus leucocephalus in Flight

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Most unjustly I deprecated you
For being on coins, flags, insignia
Feathers plucked from someone else's headdress
For depicting an us that is not us
A bald figurehead hatching lie after lie
But I never really saw you, did I?
Their flattened likenesses were never yours
Now, I see you hovering above me, now
Nobody's symbol, no country's dogma
Nobody's original but your own
They must have only seen themselves in you
Not you in themselves, never you for you
And for that, and them, and you, I am sorry

J. Commander

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