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Reincarnation I (Turkey Vulture)

I was awakened
from dreams of making things.
My request granted
adrift on the ridge wind.

My human life forsaken.
I had asked to come back
to eat carrion.

To eat jellied bones
gasworks fumed
Cooling flesh abandoned
even by the ticks and the lice.
And left to moulder
in November's soft pearl sun.

I asked to leave my hands behind
fickle fingers
so talented at making things
but even more talented at disassembling
breaking
draining
firing and using
using up.

My bare head
raw red
protuberant and
lushly fleshy
Seems like a doll's head
from another animal
ill-fitted to my elegant
soaring frame

But I am a soaring garbageman
undertaker
street sweeper
and autopsier
culling the cause of death
from the exquisite scents
and my hooded head
is my protection
and my emblem
of my avocation

Terminal feathers
splayed out like fingers;
I gesture
pointing towards
the ridge
and skate along it
sideways like some kind of
deranged magic trick.

I spend long hours circling alone
honing my tongue to scent
like an axe whetted to death

Sometimes I join a cyclone of my blood
our black wings circling
up the thermals together.
A clattered cloud of pointing feathers
always ascending

Hawks and falcons rush by me in manic attack
but I am built for economy, not speed.
And even in their headlong dives
they often fleetingly glance
sidelong in envy at my lazy
eternal soar

I make nothing except time.
I desire nothing except death.
I create nothing
only undo creation
that is my calling
ripe as the wind.