Inspiration among vultures?

I received a request to provide a link that will point folks to the newsletter I sent out April 27. Since my newsletters aren’t housed anywhere public—they only go out to subscribers—I’m pasting that one in here. The formatting didn’t quite translate, but the content did. I hope you enjoy reading it.

Inspiration among vultures?

Last Saturday, while riding with my husband in our trusty Ford Escape along Sonoma County backroads, I reveled in the sunshine and blue skies after months of winter weather that ranged from inclement to brutal. In the distance, I spied vultures circling above a dead or dying animal I couldn’t see.

Ordinarily, I would feel a passing sort of disgust upon noticing them, ugly creatures that eat the dead. The emotion wouldn’t be strong enough to voice aloud, and my attention would soon move on to a hawk or deer or maybe a field of wild flowers.

But during a Zoom meeting just a few days before that sighting, Marie, a friend and writing colleague of mine, read a poem she’d just written. The topic: vultures. She gave me permission to share it with you.

Ode to Vulture
By Marie Judson

bird of prey
scavenger
buzzard
raptor
condor
23 species extant, 16 living

harpy eagle
cinereous
griffon, gyps fulvus
white-rumped bengalensis
Indian indicus
slender-billed tenuirostris.
Himalayan
white-backed africanus
bearded barbitus

wing-span wide, you sail past my window,
swoop back, carried on an updraft
taking my breath
a group in flight, you’re a kettle
resting on the ground, a committee
feeding on carrion, a wake

associated only with death
yet related to storks
mythic bringer of new life

cathartae, your genus
in Greek meaning purifier
infection clearer
bacteria destroyer
you save more life than you take
Wisely worshiped by ancients
patron of Egyptian Nekhbet
legend of the Mayans, the Aztecs

now endangered
poisoned to extinction

(c) 2023 Marie Judson

A shift

I liked the poem a lot when I heard it, but my attention soon turned to other things. Then I saw vultures on Saturday and felt no judgment, no disgust, no disdain. Instead, I thought of Marie’s poem and I felt peaceful, thinking those birds are playing an important part in the ebb and flow of life.

This, I believe, is a reminder of the power of poetry, how it can gently shift perceptions, touch our hearts, sometimes jolt us awake. And how fitting it is to share this with you in the gorgeous month of April, which is National Poetry Month in the United States.

I’d like to know whether a poem has gotten under your skin in a good way lately or even a long, long time ago. The easiest way share your thoughts is to reply to this email. I eagerly await your response!

An author to follow

Marie’s main focus isn’t poetry. She spends more time writing fantasy and fantasy sci-fi novels—whole series of them. Many authors are known primarily for one genre or type of writing but also explore other forms of creative expression. Take Anais Nin. She was internationally acclaimed for her journals, which she began at age eleven and continued writing throughout her life, but she also wrote erotica. Amy Tann is known for her novels, but she’s also written books for children and been a member of a rock band. There are likely creative facets to all of our favorite authors that we don’t know about.

So who knows? Marie may someday become well known for her new fantasy sci-fi series, but we’ll all know she also writes poetry (and sings in a chorus). Here’s the delicious cover and description for the first book in her Lost Xentu series:

Yanda leaves everything behind, pulled across the universe by a call so powerful she hears nothing else…

Stepping to the window of her high-rise apartment, she looks across at Shrapels Hospital where she’s a surgeon—one with surprising abilities, on a high-tech planet that censures any signs of magic. By sky-tunnel, work is minutes away.

Yanda has no idea she has little time left on her home planet before she will be drawn across the universe … to be imprisoned for her mind-powers … for a very long time.

Click here for more info on this book.

And a little treat for those of you who enjoy photos of my granddaughters: they are thriving.

If you’d like to join my Reader Group and receive monthly notes from me, you can sign up at the bottom of this page.

Till next time, be hope, be joy, be love.