Carpriestess: Buzzard Woman

Buzzard woman
scouring the earth
scavenging
uncovering
digging up
clawing away.

She picks the meat
from your bones
she drops the scales
from your eyes
she cleans out
your shell.

Digesting
transforming
all that has passed away
into something new
clearing away the dead
making way for rebirth.

Listen to her
she says
waste nothing.

Lots of vultures on the road yesterday morning and again when I returned heading the other direction. I’ve seen at least four dead armadillos on the road in the last two days. I got a comment in response to my Armadillo post surprised that we have armadillos in Missouri. Indeed, we didn’t always have them. They have migrated this direction in response to climate change, since they can now survive the more mild winters we now have here. In fact, just this past winter I saw one in the woods snuffling around through the snow. They often dig holes in our field or rustle through the woods.

This week, I also saw hummingbirds in the woods. We feed them, so I often see them in front of the house at the feeders, but I don’t usually notice them “in the wild.” It has been raining like crazy here (I mean crazy. There is significant flooding in many areas close to me, including on the gravel road I take in to town [one direction, the other direction is passable, so I’m not trapped]). This is in dramatic contrast to the horrible drought we experienced last summer. In the woods, I noticed lots of leaves starting to fall. Right now, they’re falling because of heat or disease or various reasons rather than it really being fall, but still…it was a startling reminder that autumn is coming. Really? Wasn’t it just spring and then summer?! Didn’t I just start visiting the woods on the ice and snow?!