After sunset I walk under spruce boughs,
looking for the owl the others saw midday.
Huge, they said, it took up so much being,
so much heartspan in the air. Whoo whoo,
I move toward it, no moon or stars,
my way snow-lit.
Above the branches foxed in blacker
than the sky, I hope to see its ears
in silhouette, the shoulder-shrug of wings.
Whoo, whoo, louder now, then nothing.
It seems just in front of me and high.
Beneath the trees, I stand inside
my many years, inside the owl’s
deep hearing— it’s hush, my hush,
circling out and out and touching
our grey heads. Let this be
the what-I-don’t-see I die with,
this feathered, thick-lapped
listening of the night.
~ from Whetstone (McClelland and Stewart Ltd, 2005)
