The Condor

These Andean summits

As high as the sky

Were where I once nested

Beyond them I'd fly

And I'd shadow the valleys

And jungle and stream

In a kingdom of clouds

On an Inka sun beam

Atahualpa they called me

My people below

As I raised them above

All the seeds that they sow

For my beak could speak volumes

My talons could write

And my wings were a symbol

Of freedom in flight

Yet to see from my heights

And be one with the winds

Was to sacrifice all

Of their dollars and sins

Which beckoned much sweeter

Then carrion choirs

And tasted delicious

To carnal desires

A belly of maggots

Then filled me with darkness

To scavenge a life

On an emptiness carcass

The once bird of prey

Who so countered these cultures

Was brought to their level

To feast with the vultures

Whose Gods raped and ravaged

The lessons I taught

Then they slaughtered my kind

In the wars that they fought

Still some look to my peaks

In the stormiest weather

But all that remains

Is an acid rain feather

Now lost to the zephyrs

My species extinct

I'm as dead to their world

As the legends I've inked