This morning as I walked
I saw an owl
veer into the hemlocks,
just above my head.
Chestnut patterns stenciled
on her feathery breast,
powerful barred wings soaring in flight.
I liked knowing she was veiled in evergreen as
dry papery leaves
drifted down around me.
A few crows expressed their displeasure.
Raucous mob cries
cut through the
patch -worked forest.
Vacant lots leave holes in the sky.
These days the wild things
must choose their roosts with care,
a brilliant blue firmament and a well
ripened sun won’t offer refuge for many
(But slanted light lets shadows play).
There is peace in this moment
but I cannot quite grasp it.
Like the owl it too slips away.
Walking home under golden beech
and granite stone
I thought of my mother,
and omens, wondering
what truths wafted my way
on the wings of that bird.
Owl is a seer, and so am I
but these wits are dulled
by another round
with the coyote woman
who steals light,
childlike joy,
and covers his tracks with lies
or bones.
It’s hard to create bridges
When Silence Is What You Know.
It wasn’t until I saw her
lifeless body
lying there in my garden
That I wept.
Two birds, not one.
I had watched the grouse
gobble berries and bugs.
Just the day before,
I welcomed her back.
Last summer as a new mother
she pecked ruby grapes.
I heard peeps in wheat colored grass.
When I first came here
I planted trees for blossoms to awaken me
from the long winter’s sleep.
The fruits come later – a feast
for birds and animals in summer and fall,
– some like the robins
who now cluster in the trees; songbirds
dropping to the ground for vermillion seeds
as I watch them, astonished,
from inside the window.
How could I have ever imagined
that this body of land, once
an oasis for all creatures,
would become an island
surrounded by slash –
heaped up limbs torn away
from textured trunks
root brains left to rot?
Now the “Owner of the Animals”*
calls in her kin
to leave this place.
Desecrated by man,
black bears no longer grace these woods,
wearing soft padded paws and sleek summer fur.
The deer grow gaunt with hunger.
Silence is king.
It’s not enough that I see
or that my heart breaks
with the loss of each species.
I left her body
on the hill where the foxes
come in to feed.
Plucked a few crowning feathers
to remind us both that
even in death
her life was what mattered to me.
(10/13/14)*
* owner of the animals varies from tribe to tribe – no hierarchal structure – the owner is the voice of the animals expressed through a chosen animal often a bear or a deer
Read Meet Mago Contributor Sara Wright.
Deftly describes the tragedy of the death of beauty. A truly lovely poem.