Earlier this week I saw a huge vulture on the side of the road, and it reminded me of something I wrote a couple of years ago (before I had a blog):
March 25, 2007
A disturbing thing happened yesterday. I looked out the bathroom window and saw a large bird, even bigger than these fat cardinals and woodpeckers who fight over the Ol’ Roy dog food Wayne puts out for the dogs. This bird was BIG. Cautiously, it looked around the yard, wary, watching for killer dogs (where were those maniacs?). Pretty in an odd way, its body was covered with black feathers, but its neck and head were free of feathers, making the curve of its neck and head look like a goose or a duck or something. I noticed it had a little hook on the front of its beak; it hooked down. Gradually, I decided that it must be, well, a vulture—a “buzzard” as we say around here. In my backyard? Were all the dogs all right? The bird was trying to drink water out of an orange bucket Wayne had left in the backyard…but there was water in other containers for the dogs nearby. Why not drink there, or in the creek? I went for the camera, which was naturally not charged up. I went outside to see if the buzzard were still there. No…but then I looked up. There it was, high in the walnut tree—definitely a vulture, looking down over the hill, thankfully not over the house. So far up in the tree, it looked just like the cartoon buzzards on Jungle Book.
I see symbols everywhere, literature-teaching woman that I am. A sign of death?
What is it that Mel Gibson’s character says in the movie Signs? "Are you the type of person who sees signs in everything?"
"Creeped me out," as the kids say. Diana came home a little while after that, and we watched Thelma and Louise. When Wayne came home from his mother’s house, I told him about the buzzard and the orange bucket. There were fish guts in there—he cleaned some fish and left the remains in the bucket (I know...ewww). There is always a reasonable explanation-- even a nasty, smelly one-- for unusual events, even signs.
At least I didn’t hear it say "Nevermore."
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