The Anatomy of Larks and Vultures

Lark: (1) n. any of a family (Alaudidae) of chiefly Old World ground-dwelling songbirds that are usually brownish in color; (2) n. a source of or quest for amusement or adventure; or (3) v. to engage in harmless fun or mischief

Exhibit 1: The Song of the Lark is a painting by Jules Adolphe Aimé Louis Breton, a 19th century French realist painter. Breton was influenced by the French countryside, often capturing the idyllic beauty of rural life. The painting itself shows an image of a young peasant girl with a sickle looking heavenward. In the backdrop, a setting sun shines a brilliant scarlet red. "It is said that the artist, Jules Breton, was walking in the fields of France early one morning when suddenly there burst forth the joyous song of a lark singing high in the air. As he looked about him, trying to discover the bird, he soon found it by following the rapt gaze of a peasant girl who had stopped to look and listen. As you know, an English lark sings while flying high in the air instead of in the treetops as other birds do. Its song, too, is longer and far more beautiful than that of our lark, and has been the subject of many poems."

(The Song of the Lark, Breton)

Exhibit 2: The Lark Ascending is a popular piece for violin and orchestra, written in 1914 by the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. It was inspired by George Meredith's 122-line poem of the same name about the skylark. The composition is intended to convey the lyrical and almost eternally English beauty of the scene in which a skylark rises into the heavens above some sunny down and attains such height that it becomes barely visible to those on the ground below (taken from wikipedia.org).

Vulture: (1) any of various large birds (families Accipitridae and Cathartidae) that are related to the hawks, eagles, and falcons but have weaker claws and the head usually naked and that subsist chiefly or entirely on carrion; (2) a rapacious or predatory person, -vul·tur·ish (adjective)

Exhibit 3: Scott MacLeod of Time Magazine wrote an article (September12, 1994) on Kevin Carter, who received the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography in 1994 for the photograph of "a child barely alive [and] a vulture so eager for carrion... that epitomized Sudan's famine." Macleod records the moments the Carter takes the photograph:

"Seeking relief from the sight of masses of people starving to death, he wandered into the open bush. He heard a soft, wigh-pitched whimpering and saw a tiny girl trying to make her way to the feeding center. As he crouched to photograph her, a vulture landed in view. Careful not to disturb the bird, he positioned himself for the best possible image. He would later say he waited about twenty minutes, hoping the vulture would spread its wings. It did not and after he took his photographs, he chased the bird away and watched as the little girl resumed her struggle. Afterward he sat under a tree, lit a cigarette, talked to God and cried."

One journalist stated, "The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene." The article later writes, "Two months after receiving his Pulitzer, Carter would be dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in Johannesburg, a suicide at 33." His suicide note read: "The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist."

Observations: I am not the best with words. Instead, I try to convey my thoughts , my ideas and the world which I perceive through the stories I hear and things that I see. I would very much like to be the lark all the time, ascending to great heights and singing beautifully with all the world below me and all the heavens above me as my audience. I wish to say that I am never the vulture, preying upon the weak and feeding on carrion.

This is life as I perceive it. It is the step that needs to be taken to be on the plane. It is the dive into the deep blue water. It is the first stanza sung on the stage. It is the single line of a poem read. I am learning to let my "yes" be "yes" and my "no" be "no."

(Carter 1993)