Thursday, June 23, 2016

deeply gaze

My eyes were on the wooden bridge where a man leaned against the railing.
Not my husbands eyes though.
His gaze was already aligned with the strangers.
They spoke in unison. "There's an owl."
Perched on a curved branch hanging over the bubbling creek, was an owl. A Barred Owl. It stared solemnly at us.
We whistled softly at it and hooted but it just blinked.
I wished my grandchildren had been along. It isn't often that an owl perches where it can be admired and scrutinized.
I remembered walking with my daughter and the children on a long ago afternoon and being startled by a bird suddenly swooping between the trees, right across the path where we were walking in the dappled light of a heavily wooded park.
It was a giant bird.
A Great Grey Owl.
Silently, it swooped back towards us, and up into the branches beyond.
There it perched in all its magnificent, regal greyness.
What a huge bird.
No wonder they are called Great Grey Owls.
It stared and stared at us and we were just as impolite.
The children and I stood in a row and hooted and hooted.
The eyes of the owl never left our faces.
It began to feel a little unnerving.

My husband went back to the woods with me the next day, hoping to see the Great Grey Owl but alas, the branches were bare.
We hooted and whooted and did hear owls calling but none came for a closer look.

I'd like to be an Owl Whisperer.
I'd like to stand and call, and wings wide would silently sweep.
Black glistening eyes would deeply gaze.
And I would hear with my heart.

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