The Owl

A poem, since I said I would share one.

A dull shriek, this night becomes known to you,
In your black ward only the stars offer safety;
And from every treetop the darkness settles,
Down into the earth the hours sleep like leaves.

Now carried by cold wings touched by moss
Beneath you the air withers, but you move on.
Passages where once none could be found,
Now you rise with those beasts of a thousand feet.

Let them not hear you, unless you are certain
Let them not see you, until they are shadows,
And scared off by their image they hide in your home
From branches you fall like nets, you give them rest.

In your eyes live the oldest dreams of the forest,
Black ponds of other creatures, of the forgotten;
There Pan endures, and returns in your stone face,
Still threatening death for those wandered too far.

A fear unknown to man lives on in you, freely shared,
And you protected by those shadowy walls, given in time.
You, flying like the sun, eternal beneath the earth –
And there in the dawn, yesterday's dwindling light.