Taunting vultures circulate overhead

Without invitation.

The incessant, whipping wings

Pay no mind to

The air that I displace.

 

I watch with apathy.

I watch with anxiety.

I watch so long that I become

As invisible as I feel.

They spin like like the earth on its axis.

 

To look upward and watch

Is to fool myself

Into thinking that I manage well -

I lie down

to get a better view.

 

I reflect on a spell

When the army of talons

Did not dizzy me.

When the world balanced itself

On some other sorry creatures shoulders.

 

Sometimes my back gives way

From the weight.

Sometimes the false foundation

Beneath me

Breaks my heart.

 

In seemingly vain

Efforts, I cry past the birds

To the clouds.

“Give me strength to stop looking;

To start living.”

 

A bout of thunder

Scatters feathers like volcanic ash.

A strike of lightning unifies the sand

I rise into the burning air

The buzzards crescendo.

 

Then silence.

Time slows here -

in the eye of the storm.

 

It is simple to understand now

Without the monotonous sun in my eyes.

These unforgiving vultures

have only ever been

Hummingbirds in disguise.