Resurrection by Vulture

Previously published by We'Moon 2021, on the page for this weekend:

Imagine a world whose creation myth begins not with Light, nor even with Darkness, but with a vulture picking clean the bones of a dream we finally admitted was dead. Our own magic destroyed us in the end. Humanity couldn't rule after all; our own bodies betrayed us. But for the vulture with her naked head, her naked face, the comforting tent of her black wings discreetly enfolding our dying, there is no shame in a body, no shame in our mistakes. Every sinew, every organ, is sacred in its undoing. She scented out our grief. She traveled down from the highest pinnacles of the sky to alight upon our bare, helpless bones. Her body is a crucible that destroys every foul pathogen; she comes to cleanse the earth of its suffering. She comes to ingest our unfinished stories, the sweet intentions in our lies, the meat of our devouring, the wounds of our losses, our shapes that once cast shadows. She comes to recycle them into muscle and wing, and remind us they belong to the universe.

Yes, this is our time of belonging.

Imagine a world whose creation myth begins with letting go. Letting the ugly vulture unbind our beauty, letting the form unwind, letting her prepare us to become the earth. From her nest on the highest cliffs, she digests us and watches the release of our remains now available for new nourishment. She's going to live a long, long time, as vultures do, because they eat truth every day. And for all the thousand ways we resurrect into new lives, new worlds, out of the green heedless fronds of the earth, we are also living up there in her wings, forever, in the absolute stillness of her flight on skies of forgiveness.