the tree and the owl

Chernevog by Keith Parkinson
via

In two parts.

1.
So many winters, so very many bodies.
I wasn't young when they built this dais below me.
- What is she doing here? If she's trying to plant them, she's going about it all wrong. They'll never get roots through that rock, even if she did remove their husks, which she never does. And what does all this have to do with me? She lays them on the dais, waves her arms at me, then leaves. What am I supposed to do - wave a branch and say, "Hey, thanks for all the cadavers"? Really, if she's going to leave them here, she could at least bury them so the animals wouldn't take all that fine fertilizer.
- Say, do you think that owl is eyeballing the body? This could get odorous.

2.
It must be leaf-fall: the human has deposited another corpse. Foul thing, but it keeps the ground-hunters away from my nest, til new-leaf at least. And, it draws prey as any other meat might. So it's useful. Now, to wait...



~~~

Written at writing class, in response to the above picture and the prompt: "What are you doing here?"