Wheeling through the dark blue arc
Of a wide cloud spattered sky,
A solitary vulture sails in circles
With sharply discerning eyes,
Come to clean the carnage below
Left from the struggle for who lives and who dies.

No harbinger of Death's cold finger, she.
Humble, faithful servant
Turning old back into the new.
When the vulture comes, Death does not linger;
Death's odor departs
And Death's cold finger
Is made warm as fresh earth,
Where flowers bloom better than last year
Because the faithful vulture has kept faith with her thankless work.