redheaded vultures

redheaded vultures

perched on fence posts, soar away

to tall bare branches

Looks like a vulture convention, three red heads on large dark bodies perched in a row on fence posts next to the black top. As I slow the truck to a stop, I'm wondering, what poor creature are they waiting for to die? Three red heads turn and eye me for a few heart beats. I'm not moving, but somehow they know I'm not dead, so they take off to join their comrade maintaining a vigil in the top of a dead tree.
          I remember the first time I really thought about the puzzle of life and death. Grandpa just chopped the head off of a hen and the body is running around the bare dirt yard for what seems like forever. 
          Puzzled by a headless bird acting like a live one, I ask Grandpa, "How come that hen is still running around?"
          He grunts and says, "Takes awhile for the body to catch on that it's dead." Just then the hen flops over and lays still. Grandpa picks the body up by its feet and takes it to Grandma in the kitchen. 
          While Grandma is plucking the feathers off, I ask her, "How do you know when something is dead?"
          She chuckles. "When the vultures will eat it."
          "Does that mean we're vultures?"
          "No, pumpkin, you got to have a red head to be a vulture."
          "Does that mean Uncle Joe is a vulture?" Uncle Joe has red hair.
          Grandma laughs. "He's as hairy as a bear, but as far as I can tell, he don't have feathers."