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Friday 25 March 2016

The eating of sewage

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They were graceful, living, free things. They were triumphant. The getting of food, even the eating of sewage was done thus gracefully, beautifully.
Sherwood Anderson - Out of Nowhere Into Nothing (1921)

Anderson was describing gulls soaring and diving over a polluted river. Shitehawks my father used to call them. They feed on it but don't live in it.

5 comments:

Scrobs. said...

That is very, very astute, Mr H.

My measly tax bill pays for these bottom feeders.

Demetrius said...

Jack Point singing his song oh?

A K Haart said...

Scrobs - it does and they don't even have to account for it.

Demetrius - probably singing it on a better diet though.

Jack the dog said...

Hardly graceful though is he, CAmeron.

More like a drunk vulture struggling to stand upright on a dead tree.

A K Haart said...

Rupert - not really graceful no. Too harassed to be that.