Visitor from another world (UG)
Created | Updated Sep 14, 2005
So what are you doing there?
Sat on the crash barrier in the middle of a Basque motorway
Hopping from foot to foot, flapping your big old wings for balance
It's all a bit ungainly really, a bit cramped for space
You seem disconcerted by the speeding metal either side of you
Are you weighing up a dilemma that evolution hasn't prepared you for?
All that biodiversity flattened on the tarmac must be tempting
The ultimate convenience food for the discerning predator,
But when you're not designed for a vertical take off
You might be safer with something that's died somewhere quieter
But perhaps you're waiting for someone?
A future road rage victim, sales rep late for a meeting,
A tired trucker coming to the end of a twenty hour shift?
I should think you would be the very last thing I would want to see
Crawling out of an overturned vehicle, bleeding and battered
A metre of flesh rendering machine, pointed beak and long talons
With your gimlet eye looking at me like a fat man in front of his chips.
Vultures get a bad press for sure, done down by the eagle fanciers
And those that turn their nose up at your diet
You can't really speak up for yourself, what with not having a larynx.
But I hope you made it out all right
Back to the high plains, back to the mountain canyons.
After all in a society that throws so much away,
Where would we be without our foremost waste disposal experts?
Sprout
