Under the Vulture-Tree

We have all seen them circling pastures,

have looked up from the mouth of a barn, a pine clearing,

the fences of our own backyards, and have stood

amazed by the one slow wing beat, the endless dihedral drift.

But I had never seen so many so close, hundreds,

every limb of the dead oak feathered black,

and I cut the engine, let the river grab the jon boat

and pull it toward the tree.

The black leaves shined, the pink fruit blossomed

red, ugly as a human heart.

Then, as I passed under their dream, I saw for the first time

its soft countenance, the raw fleshy jowls

wrinkled and generous, like the faces of the very old

who have grown to empathize with everything.

And I drifted away from them, slow, on the pull of the river,

reluctant, looking back at their roost,

calling them what I'd never called them, what they are,

those dwarfed transfiguring angels,

who flock to the side of the poisoned fox, the mud turtle

crushed on the shoulder of the road,

who pray over the leaf-graves of the anonymous lost,

with mercy enough to consume us all and give us wings.

Source: Armored Hearts: Selected and New Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 1995)