Hearing you cry twice
I thought of rats and mice.
You live in my heart
Inspiring my art.
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth
Your cry portended death.
When I hear your cry
I know I too must die.
But perhaps you and I
Will find in rhyme a kind
Of immortality –
Though, in the graveyard plot
It matters not.
Walking through the churchyard, as dusk fell, I heard the note of my old friend the owl. On reaching home I closed my bedroom window for it was a chilly evening. However, despite my double-glazing, the cold cry of the owl penetrated into my modern flat.
Ever since moving to the Upper Norwood area in late 1997, I have always been conscious of the owl. Sometimes he disappears for protracted periods but, as sure as eggs are eggs “the fatal bellman” reappears.
Hearing the owl reminds me of my poem which is, appropriately enough entitled “Owl”,
One day the owl will swoop
And I shall be gone
From the coop
Leaving a few fragments of verse.
It is my
Curse
On hearing the owl’s cry
To think on when I
Shall die
Sometimes I attempt to shout down the birds
And choose
To lose
Myself in words.
But as a dart
Ere long
Their song
Pierces my heart.
On occasions I try
To escape the owl’s cry
And pretend
There is no end
To meet
And sheet.
But as night falls,
He calls to me.
I’ve always felt an affinity with owls. My home is close to a historic park in Upper Norwood (a suburb of Greater London). From time to time, I hear the owls’ eerie cry, which brings to mind thoughts of my own mortality, coupled with the death of King Duncan in Macbeth.
I have lain awake listening for the owl’s cry.
A note that chills
Thrills
Then does die.
One day
This bird of prey
Will carry my soul away,
Or so the supersticious say.
Mice hide
While I, in my pride
Decide
The owl’s erie cry
Signifies that I will die.
The bird has no interest in me
So why can I not be free
From his cry
That to my window nigh
does rise, then, as suddenly, die?
Waking from a strange dream
I hear the fatal bellman toll.
‘Tis Macbeth’s owl
Signifying death.
A warm bed
On a dark October morn.
My fancy
And the cold note of an owl hunting.
Me reading my poem, ‘Owl’ which can be found in ‘Dalliance; a collection of poetry and prose’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD29wEmIywY
Outside my darkening window you glide. You call, fall, and something once living dies.
The owl’s mournful cry caused the young woman to gaze up into the night sky. Death glided gracefully overhead in search of his prey.
“I salute you my friend” the woman said raising her hand to signify her respect.
Her coal black hair blue in the rising wind. She licked her full red lips and smiled. Briliant white teeth reflected back the light of the moon. She, to was in search of her prey.
K Morris - Poet 