O is for Owl

ABC Wednesday
October 18th, 2017

O is for Owl, and for Mary Oliver

Little Owl Who Lives in the Orchard

by Mary Oliver

His beak could open a bottle,

and his eyes - when he lifts their soft lids -

go on reading something

just beyond your shoulder -

Blake maybe,

or the Book of Revelation.

Never mind that he eats only

the black-smocked crickets,

and dragonflies if they happen

to be out late over the ponds, and of course

the occasional festal mouse.

Never mind that he is only a memo 

from the offices of fear -

it's not size but surge that tells us

when we're in touch with something real,

and when I hear him in the orchard

fluttering

down the little aluminum

ladder of his scream -

when I see his wings open, like two black ferns,

a flurry of palpitations

as cold as sleet

rackets across the marshlands

of my heart,

like a wild spring day

Somewhere in the universe,

in the gallery of important things,

the babyish owl, ruffled and rakish,

sits on its pedestal.

Dear, dark dapple of plush!

A message reads the label,

from that mysterious conglomerate:

Oblivion and Co.

The hooked head stares

from its blouse of dark, feathery lace.

It could be a valentine.

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