The Owl
Who watches the ground unseen
And who, if seen, from faultless
Frontal eyes, gives
back your look
Unbroken, stands for the wise.
Where she lives by
little deaths,
The silence of her hunting,
A longing word floated
out
On the woods’ oblivious wave,
Seem to speak of
no body,
A light time does not govern.
By day, the neat
rejected
Forms of bone and fur, stones and
Rind of the night’s
fruit, are all
That’s left to understanding.
* * *
In the nuns’
chapel, a man
Holds one up – the barn, church or
Silver – for
the curious.
Against the back of my hand
The box of air of
her breast
Is soft as forgetfulness.
* * *
I remember most of
all
In Suffolk before the dawn
Her quartering the
meadow.
All quite still, the dew-sharp grass,
Trees thick with
the last of night
And the day’s unwoken force
Fastened to her quietness,
Folded down in her white cross.
John Gibbens
