Bonedancer

Bonedancer

Bonedancer, hear me.

I sing the song

that burns the candle

here beside the flume of dark

where Styx meets bright Tiger

where Persephone falters

eating one sweet seed after another

too long too dry to stop.

Bonedancer, fly

in the dream I dream

of the totem wolf talking

of skinshifters walking

where the waking's hard

but the sleeping is harder

on memory's cold stones,

loser's bloat and bones.

Bonedancer, pivot

above the look

that shakes a threshing

from a sowing

that calls to its own

on strings of wild

violin eyes, hiss

your mother bird's chorus, chuffling

your chicks towards a white sun

candle that burns in the grass.

~November 2012

Posted for   real toads

Challenge: Transforming Friday

 This did not start out to be a poem about turkey buzzards, and perhaps still isn't, but Hannah's prompt gave it shape. There are many of them here where I live, and their intricate wheeling and sailing on the rise and fall of thermals is a joy to watch.

Process notes: In Greek(and later Roman) myth, Persephone was a chthonic goddess , daughter of Demeter, goddess of the harvest, and Zeus. Kidnapped by Hades, she became a goddess of the dead, but also of the land's rebirth. After her kidnapping devastated the croplands due to her mother's grief, Hades was persuaded to return her from the nether regions, but first he offered her a pomegranate, of which she ate four seeds,  dooming her to spend four months of every year below the earth.

 From wikipedia: "The Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura), also known in some North American regions as the turkey buzzard (or just buzzard)… is a scavenger and feeds almost exclusively on carrion. It finds its food using its keen eyes and sense of smell, flying low enough to detect the gases produced by the beginnings of the process of decay in dead animals. In flight, it uses thermals to move through the air, flapping its wings infrequently. It roosts in large community groups. Lacking a syrinx—the vocal organ of birds—its only vocalizations are grunts or low hisses. It nests in caves, hollow trees, or thickets. Each year it generally raises two chicks."

Image:  by dw_ross, on flick'r

Shared under a creative commons license