Memory Vane
Mr . Dragon
I saw a dead turkey vulture once hanging from its perch , inverted like some monstrous prehistoric bat , talons in rigor clenching the branch .
A dozen or so of its fellows snoozed upright in the branches around it , unperturbed , apparently .
Of course I had known that vultures die . Yet this scene was a little shock . These beings which seemed to be intimate companions of death were just as subject to its summons .
A loose bag of feathers and folded skin dangled , and the comic nature of the image impressed itself upon me more than the macabre .
I have seen countless vultures since I witnessed this pastoral still life , noted their methodical , yet clumsy arcs in the sky , their hunched posture on the ground , seeming to sigh with resignation , “ another day , another carcass .” So why did one vulture ’ s course through a clean blue sky , today , pull me back almost ten years beneath that cottonwood tree in Sioux City ?
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