A MISSIVE TO THE VULTURE:

I sit & watch you from my big old baobab tree,

You’ve one eye on the dying, the other one on me,

With ragged wings akimbo & fetid breath abating,

Never attacking, never killing, but always awaiting.

 

With your grim-reaper stance & so unfairly maligned,

Sentinel on earth, bold, ugly & for death so designed,

But high upon the thermals, you´re dancer of the sky,

Vigilant always, of those below, on earth about to die.

 

You´re no swan, no peacock of elegant & lovely plume,

No magnificent eagle nor albatross of icy briny spume,

Your song is not of nightingales, nor early morning lark,

Ominous presence upon skies, empty, bone-white & stark.

 

I deemed you always as my friend, us, together in solitude,

Something in your waiting, always whispered “magnitude”,

Always waiting, till your victims suffered no more awful pain,

Before your feastings & then patiently, you´d wait once again.

 

You ragged, feathered dustman, of death-bed African veldt,

You´re no murderer, just born abiding life´s cards well dealt,

Homage to you, misunderstood friend & long may you reign,

In skies & bush, scavenging & removing death´s last dying pain.