A Whimsy of Owls

This is simply a piece born out of a reading of The Owls by Edward Thomas (thanks to The Guardian here), plus a chilly walk out into the early night as temperatures have plunged back into winter.

The poem is a little fantasy, and much more lighthearted than Thomas’ brilliant and poignant writing of a hundred years ago. I suspect that is partially because the night really belongs to the owls here, and to the coyotes and other such things as are made for it. I feel like a warmlands interloper into their world, but we get along…

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I dream of owls upon a chilly night,
With feathers warm and deep and soft
In tawny brown and silver, flecks of white,
Their pinions long to float the hours aloft.
This purple, silent, sodden twilight glow--
My heart a-shiver with the growing cold--
Brings thoughts how night would find me gliding low
Above the grass or crying long and bold
To moon and meadow if I were an owl;
I’d chortle to my mate through purple eves,
All unafraid of winter’s bite and growl,
Just sheltering while branches waved and heaved
With bluster, while the clouds went flying fast;
Or down upon the wind’s self I would lie,
Great wings outspread in safety on the vast,
Broad, rushing torrent of the breeze. I’d fly,
And still I would be warm within the close
Of down and feather, and in air or nest
Would meet the winds undaunted. So, suppose
That nature gave me robes like these for rest
Upon a frigid winter’s night? It seems
She gave them only to the owl, aspire
As I might in winter’s dusk, with dreams
Of moon for light and feathers warm for fire.