Owls
Owls, Owls, strix, striga,
bird of Athena, bird of Athens,
Ath, Ath, Ath,
like Anth, Anth, Anth,
old remains, stems
unlikely winding back
to any kind of Greek;
Pelasgian mysteries
forever folded leaves
goddesses with the feet
of birds, leaving tracks
leading nowhere.
No bird of passage
the owl a bird of omen,
harbinger of good or ill
the messenger doesn't care
he only delivers;
death of a fly, fall
of an empire,
bountiful harvest,
queen of a hundred isles;
the owl, servant of fate,
an occupation that puts
no food on the table,
no meat in his beak,
makes his living elsewhere.
Real life is a quiet swoop
on a grouse on the wing,
a mouse in the grass;
under the hard pale moon
a dead lizard glitters,
ready for ripping.
Owl body light as balsa
wide silent wings
quiet as the dawn,
feathery head
cupped to catch
the shrew's squeak,
the rustle of leaves or stalks;
great yellow eyes staring
piercing the dark
in its every expression
of loss of light.
Wise as an owl, of course,
back to the ancient Greeks
and before and after;
for wise, after all,
wisdom, kenning, wit
all of it,
is a kind of seeing
through the dark,
the ranging swivel
of the owl's head
makes him all-seeing,
makes here become there
in a quick blink;
through the dark, his vision
lumen by lumen gathered
to that bright limitless wall
where the future begins
where all is writ;
the inevitably inconstant
juggling of events, a lottery
showing us now
a gold ring, now
the head of a Gorgon.
Before future herself
pulls into the station
owls know what's what
hap by hap
and their whoo-hoo,
whoo-hoo, hark! hark!
is filled with dark intent.
Omens lead this bird
or sometimes seem
to follow him;
blind to our fate,
to us it makes no difference
which comes first,
bird or boding;
heeding one or the other
or neither
profits not a whit;
willy-nilly riding that train
our peril, our safety
the same terrible risk,
the same
leap into the dark.
Jack D. Harvey’s poetry has appeared in Scrivener, The Comstock Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, Typishly Literary Magazine, The Antioch Review, The Piedmont Poetry Journal and elsewhere. He has been a Pushcart nominee and over the years has been published in a few anthologies. He has been writing poetry since he was sixteen and lives in a small town near Albany, New York.
Pulsebeat Poetry Journal 