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78 Catharsis Aura There is not a more beautiful soaring bird in America —Dean Henson, Naturalist, Pine Mountain State Resort Park I see them first higher, then below the horizon, then to rest in tops of hemlocks, the still-bare branches of black oak or elm, or this evening, six of them studding the broken ends of a snapped snag. I learn they are not bald eagles, not hawks or portent ravens; they are mountain eagles, less noble: turkey vultures, set to soaring each spring over Pine Mountain. In sky-wide pirouettes and swerves of communal roost, they come to this green and ancient place, dark hollow between the shoulders of the soft-sloped ridge. And despite the low enterprise of their species: carrion bird, sign of death and rot, circling over lined highway or cleared field, river bank, or forest stand where some life has become matted thing 79 of hair and claw and bone, in this spring season they trace their ritual gyres like angels, harps thrumming with what they would sing to us if they could: of flight and joy; world of warm currents, open space; winged grace, and the wheeling fall from it. ...

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