Mary Frederick Ahearn

Changes in Direction

"You gaze and the landscape divides and leaves you, One sinking and one rising toward the sky."
                              ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, "Evening"

The turkey buzzard sails the sky alone today. Far up in the fine blue stillness, over newly leafless trees, he circles slowly, with the grace that comes with distance, detachment. Ungainly and unsightly on the ground, ascension transforms him. Changing, shape shifting, the great bird becomes a new creature, reborn. Angel, spirit, a newly untethered soul, unbound. We gaze upwards with not a little envy.

all souls day
tell me again
what it means

Note: Rilke poem is a translation by Edward Snow