“The Turtle and the Buzzard” by Jeremy Paden

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After the end of the fourth age,
after water swallowed the sun
and all the earth was ocean,
once the waters receded
and left behind lakes and rivers
and the world was mud and stone
and rotting flesh, the turtle,
shell smooth and black as obsidian,
woke from its sleep and wandered
the valleys looking for life,
it found only the buzzard
gorging itself on corpses.
Take me to heaven, bird,
it said. I must see if God
is there, if God still cares.
But the buzzard, hungry
from an age of circling
a world of ocean, ate
and did not answer. The turtle
repeated, You with wings
and feathers, take me to heaven.
But the buzzard kept eating.
At the third request, the bird
grasped the the shell in its talons
and beat its great wings
and the two began their ascent.
You smell of death, said the turtle.
And the buzzard, silent, found
a current to ride up to God.
You smell of all that is unholy,
complained the turtle. You stink
to high heaven. And the buzzard,
angry, dropped the turtle,
when it hit the earth its shell
shattered. And God, who some say,
was the buzzard and some the stone
that broke the turtle, took pity
and collected the shards of shell
and formed again the turtle.
So the turtle, like the world,
is formed of fragments.

-Jeremy Paden

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