Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Vultures

Aaron and I sing a song when we see the black shadows of vultures riding waves of warm air overhead. They appear in silence and move with few to no wing beats as they scour the earth below.  The vultures meet in the sky, responding to an invitation of scent, one that you and I most likely will not notice.

Turkey Vulture Song

It's a turkey vulture meeting
go up in the sky
and fly around. 

It's a turkey vulture meeting
eating
carrion that's on the ground.  

I've also included an older poem by Mary Oliver about these creatures. It's pretty near to perfect, if a poem ever can be. Enjoy.  







VULTURES
By Mary Oliver

Like large dark
lazy
butterflies they sweep over
the glades looking
for death,
to eat it,
to make it vanish,
to make of it the miracle:
resurrection. No one
knows how many
they are who daily
minister so to the grassy
miles, no one
counts how many bodies
they discover
and descend to, demonstrating
each time the earth's
appetite, the unending
waterfalls of change.
No one,
moreover,
wants to ponder it,
how it will be
to feel the blood cool,
shapeliness dissolve.
Locked into
the blaze of our own bodies
we watch them
wheeling and drifting, we
honor them and we
loathe them,
however wise the doctrine,
however magnificent the cycles,
however ultimately sweet
the huddle of death to fuel
those powerful wings.