Eagles and Trains (300)

I recently went on a short road trip with my parents. The weather was typical for January in Upstate New York – blizzard and cold until we got far enough that it was simply cold. As we traveled, my mother counted hawks, as she always does. She sees them in trees and on wires, sitting stately and fluffed up in this cold weather, watching for the movement that might mark their next meal.

I was looking out the other window at the oddity of an unmoving train that ran parallel to the road. On the way home, I counted them and was amazed that there were around 188 cars. At the time, I was thinking that this might be the longest train I had ever seen – grey car after grey car, some colored with graffiti, others just skeletons of steel cross pieces. As I marveled, my mother interrupted the silence with a surprised exclamation. I turned my head in time to see the bald eagle sitting in a tree – the white of his hood stark against the grey mountains behind him and the bare branches around him. He was beautiful – close enough to really show his immense size and unmoving – a noble reminder of the untamed wilderness America once enjoyed or least contended with.

For the tiniest moment, I sat between two representations of our past. Both once thrived here – the rail was the technological future of transportation and the impressive eagle was plentiful enough to become our emblem. Both began to disappear, however, from the ravages of time and progress and we were so close to losing the eagle completely. Both have seen a resurgence, especially the eagle; and, though neither may ever fully recover, they both remain as powerful testimonies of nature, man’s world, and the cost of progress.