Once a body decomposes,
Striking smells will pique keen noses.
Gifted creatures sharp with flair
Catch the scents far in the air —
          Cues from carrion beyond
          Carried on the death-wind's song.
To you humans, such a gust
Shakes you back with foul distrust.
But we beaks of blackened steel
Flock towards that promised meal. 

There had lived a creature so,
Half a raven, half a crow,
Sharpest talent of his day,
Sensing death from miles away,
Catching scents others could not —
Future perfumes, ancient rot. 
Clouds of knowledge filled his days —
Spectral notes in mystic haze.

He detected something strange —
Something different in his range,
Something that was not quite right,
Stalling him amid his flight:

"What odd fragrance stuns me here —
Fresh decay and shades of fear,
Not a deer but not a dog,
Not a horse and not a hog.
Blood once warm, hairs once of health —
Not of fox or feline stealth.
...Something else — a blur of sweat,
Fabrics damp and fibres wet...
Like a field of running boys
Chasing after orbic toys.
...Could this be a human dead?
Ended after having fled?
Buried in the shallow dust,
Drifting, rising in this gust?
          O what riddle, O what skies —
          I must land and analyse..."