Owl
A great horned owl perched in the morning
on a pine bough just outside my window,
angled sun on glass a birder's blind.
Eyes mostly closed, feigning sleep? Her would-be
prey scrabble high and low, wary though ignored.
But when a rodent blithely came too close,
her yellow lanterns opened and she turned,
just her head, to glare as if to warn
in silence broken only by the hoots
of collared doves.
She she she of tatted shoulders whispered
she she she afar of bloody talon grip replied
hoo hoo Where are my missing sisters?
Who who who am I, this danger in your eyes?
Oval of plumes, grey-brown flecked with dirty snow,
puffing downy ruff against the wind,
short cropped tail, flat-topped head,
those two distinctive ears on either side—
how much of you is feather, how much flesh?
Your beak, death maw to vole and rabbit,
seems small above your body, container
for their bones.
Near noon, the sun reached her shaded roost
and her scimitar became a tool to groom
the feathers that seem most what she is.
One wing extended, the top of her swiveled
impossibly to beak the quick beneath,
then, her breast before me, she showed the back
of her head, studying a squirrel. She looked
intent as, like a follow-spot, she turned,
beak opening, closing, tongue slipping out
one side, the other, anticipating—
yet she did not dive. Still satisfied
from last night's kill?
Then, with each of us a swell of breath, she lifted
wings, gathered piney air beneath her
reach, and in silence sudden as a thought,
she glided off her perch into the woods.
At gloaming I approach your tree on foot
addressing you directly for permission
to hunt regurgitated pellets in the needles.
Two family members flee before me
on panic-quickened wings, their barrel-bodies
born on flashing bars.
But you allow my presence for a time
while I frame you with technology,
a grainy set of data, not a life—
mere traces of your majesty in flight—
as off you swoop without a swoosh.
Who who who am I in your eyes, your world?
The killer without cause? The hoarder?
Glutton, razer, raper, death of everything?
That which I know my kind to be?
You are wise
to fly away.
Michael, I enjoyed this very much!