Lammergeier
by
Paddy Bushe
Lammergeier.The word floats
On an even keel: the symmetry
Of that repeated er the double m
Spreading like wings, the soft consonants
caressing a featheriness of vowels
The bird floats,too curving abruptly up
And away on an updraft as we crest
The ridge below M’Goun’s humped summit.
Breathless from the altitude and the ascent,
We marvel at the parabolic grace.
Gypoetus Barbotus. The classificatory Latin
Grounds all abstractions here is basalt
And limestone scree. the earth’s bones
Lie out far below the spine of the ridge.
Dried hollow by a thin,hard wind.
And here are the upper ends of earth,
Where the bearded vulture drops scavenged
Bones from a height to smash them open
And retrive the marrow. Lammergeier.
Graceful,Precise, Connoisseur of slaughter.