Mountain Prayer
It does not take much to amaze me.
My ten year old and I walk the dog
up the road and come to a skunk
which we smell before we see it.
Dead. A crow and three vultures
take turns swooping down with their
curved beaks and slowly, beakful
by beakful, take it away. In Tibet
they call this sky burial and I
pause but my daughter
turns away, so I go with her.
The dog pulls toward home.
Behind us, wings thrum;
our shadows stretch ahead. I look
back, then up. We talk about
our own bodies, how we too will die,
how in America we use embalming
fluids. Anna wants to be buried straight
in the dirt, but I will not let her
die, and as for me, I want my body
picked clean away so in that way
I can fly many times, on many
wings. For days it does not rain
and then does. I go alone
to the empty place where the skunk
once was, and while the sky rains
over my hair, into my blinking eyes,
I make a soft and wordless
prayer that it rain blessings
into my heart, into all our hearts,
here on this dusty road, rain, rain
before the coming of the crows.
Courtney Schroeder is a poet, elementary school teacher, and student of Vajrayana Buddhism. She lives with her family in Northern California. Her work has appeared in The Dickinson Review.