Reflections double the story
I. January reveals abandoned nests in the crook arms of trees, doubled in the placid pond. Even the grackles, jays and cardinals gone.
A turkey vulture swoops in and pulls my attention to the other side of the two-lane road.
A broken field pretending sleep sends a powerful smell of earth split open, jutting black soil, shredded remains of tree roots
The vulture song seeks what everyone else shuns, dead doe, flattened squirrels, and old fox carcasses waiting for their turn to be returned.
Everyone has a family name, even vultures: Cathartes aura a cleansing breeze.
Wingspans extend beyond the edge of the field. Wingspans make their own wind. Wingspans create a small tornado in this precise spot.
a winged tornado cleanses a tornado that touches only what is already dead a tornado swoops
and lands and feasts a joyful tornado a sacred time a tornado washes death’s debris a tornado swirls a tornado wins.
II. Even vultures leave remnants for scavengers like me to carve a femur into a serving spoon. A skull cleaned and bleached by sun. A skull cleansed in the reflecting pool becomes a bowl for soup or stew.
Scavenging has become my habit in this quiet time. I stop and stoop my eye drawn to a yogurt cup a ribbon from your 80th a photo strip from a carnival booth discarded and dripping mud revealing your face for a moment then receding fast.
All poetry is memory Not all memories are poetic mine fade in and out. My poems are scattered on the craggy branches of the long dead tree like a wake of Vultures.
Shelley Blue Grabel has been writing poetry since she learned to write. In 1975 Persephone Press published The Fourteenth Witch, a book of Shelley’s poems with photographs by Deborah Snow. In 2022, Broadkill River Press published a new collection of her work, Dowry Burnings. She has performed her poetry in NYC coffee houses, Philadelphia venues, Irish Eyes, Lewes Library, Rehoboth Writers Guild Night of Poetry and Song, Milton Poetry Fest and other local venues. She continues to develop her poetic style thanks to workshops and retreats sponsored by the Delaware Division of the Arts.