a pictorial of an eagle flying over a wedding basket; a second image of an eagle wearing an American, red-white-and-blue collar is in the clouds

20 x 18 inches

In the book, Jesse Monongya: Opal Bears and Lapis Skies by Lois Sherr Duban, Jesse recalls:

“I was walking through the camp and heard an eagle cry. I looked up and there was the eagle flying overhead, swirling around. And out of the clear blue sky I saw a feather floating back and forth, coming straight down. So I ran after it, and caught it; the eagle had let go of a beautiful feather. I put it into a small Holy Bible that my grandmother had given me. I didn’t think much more about it. I finished my combat training, and got sent to Nam Pong, Thailand, near the border with Laos. Then I got a letter that my aunties had written for Grandmother and Grandfather. And… it was amazing... the letter said, ‘Did you get the feather we sent you?’ I had taken that feather with me in the war and had tied it to my helmet. And when I came home, and showed it to Grandmother and Grandfather, they said, ‘This is the feather we sent you.’” (Duban 2002:23)