Eagle and Vulture

 

 

“Thought I saw an eagle
But it might have been a vulture
I never could decide”

-Leonard Cohen, “Story of Isaac” 1969

 

 

Both birds of prey
Both live at my river
but only the vultures visit my home.
Morning and they circle over my backyard
hungry after rain.
One catches a current,
a straggler flying crazily.
They will return at dusk
helping me mark a time to pray.

 

The eagles have a secret nest near the river,
hidden and guarded by people
who know about protection.
Every day their chicks grew in Spring.

 

Every day a webcam recorded and
thousands watched online.
We love the eagles but the vultures have chicks too.
They are so numerous in our parks.
Not fifty years ago when I came here, but now.
They confront us with change.
They are also sacred and ancient.

 

We would rather see an eagle
that will carry us on her wings,
but a vulture also knows light and dark.
The intensity of her eyesight
inspires the fear of the unknown.

 

The eagle knows friend and foe and prey.
She flies with certainty and
sends her chicks gasping
into the air currents.
She knows when it is time for them to open their wings,
not stumbling half blind from the nest,
but elegantly over cascading water.
In Mexico the eagle is cuahtli.
The vulture is cozcacuahtli,

sacred because it wears a feathered necklace
and consumes that whose time is over.

 

Vultures love the circle, the samech of flight.
They are not afraid to return, to gather in their known places,
in every season. They succeed and they are not afraid
to live among us.