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Carrion Luggage
Carrion Luggage
 
Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem.
This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it.
It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans.
It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier."
I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination.
September 4, 2025 at 12:53am September 4, 2025 at 12:53am
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“Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”
That's from G.K. Chesterton. Chesterton lived a hundred years ago. Since that time, things have changed. Poets have changed. The nature of mysterious silence has changed. Most importantly, cheese has changed.
Well, okay, not really, unless you count the introduction of industrial chemical "cheese," which as far as I'm concerned is a legitimate counterargument against the usefulness of technology. Oh, sure, it melts more evenly, and it's cheaper, but it's not cheese. It barely even qualifies as food.
But, mostly, there's a good reason for not waxing (pun intended: fake cheese looks and tastes like wax) poetic about fermented dairy products: poets have no sense of humor, and cheese is inherently funny.
"But Waltz, lots of poets write funny poems." No, comedians write funny verses; poets have way too much angst to transcend themselves by writing limericks or senryu.
Which is not to say I don't appreciate poetry. I can do angst. I have a fondness for melodrama, and melodrama verges on comedy. But rare is the poem that transports my psyche the way a good comedy act can.
So, of course, I looked for modern poems on the subject of cheese, and I found this one,  but I can't tell if the poet meant to be funny but missed the mark, or shot for seriousness and landed on humor.
And then there's this, which is firmly and decisively all about cheese, and not even the plastic kind. But the strict rhythm and rhyme make me believe it, too, was meant to be funny. Or maybe not; like I said, cheese is inherently funny.
Another one comes from reddit, though, far from being a loving ode to spoiled milk, it expresses the poet's hatred of one particular cheese style (one which, say what you will about it, but at least it's not Kraft Singles).
So, in short, Chesterton's proclamation (itself a prime example of dry British humour) is outdated, superseded by those who, perhaps to spite Chesterton, have given us the artistic expressions of their souls on the subject of delicious cheese.
But no poem, certainly not the ones I found for this discourse, can ever truly capture the magic of cheese, any more than writing about beer can give us the sublime experience of actually drinking the magic brew. Perhaps that's why it took so long to write any: while love, the traditional subject of a poet's pen, is simple enough to be transcribed, described, and inscribed, the glory of cheese is not.
Notes: ▼
Written for "Blog Week Birthday Bastion 2025" [E]
Prompt: Quote: “Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”
― G.K. Chesterton.
Make this quote the start of your blog today.
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© Copyright 2025 Robert Waltz (UN: cathartes02 at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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) would run from Vivaldi to Disturbed. Nothing with an accordion, however. And a one, and a two... (Now there's a reference few will get) 
Alaska is a state? Oh, right, you can see Russia from there. 
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