Vultures

This is not an Easter poem but after the passing of poet Chinua Achebe we thought it pertinant to use, probably, his most famous poem:


In the greyness

and drizzle of one despondant
dawn unstirred by habingers
of sunbreak a vulture
perching hign on broken
bones of a dead tree
nestled close to his
mate his smooth
bashed in head, a pebble
on a stem rooted in
a dump of gross
feathers, inclined affectionatley
to hers. Yesterday they picked
the eyes of a swollen
corpse in a water-logged
trench and ate the
things in it's bowels. Full
gorged they chose their roost
Keeping the hollowed remnant
in easy range of cold
telescopic eyes...

Strange
indeed how love in other
ways so particular
will pick a corner
in that charnel house
tidy it and coil up there, perhaps
even fall asleep - her face
turned to the wall!

...Thus th Commandant at Belsen
Camp going home for the
the day with fumes of
human roast clinging
rebelliously to his hairy
nostrils will stop
at the wayside sweet-shop
and pick up a chocolate
for his tender offspring
nostrils will stop
waiting at home for Daddy's
return...

Praise bounteous
Providence if you will
that grants even an ogre
a tiny glow worm
tenderness encapsulated
in icy caverns of a cruel
heart of else dispair
for in the very germ
of that kindred love is
lodged the perpetuity
of evil.