Barn Owl

Winging hard by, sheer and level, quick and killing – Barn Owl, Billy Wix, Ginny Ollit – a plectrum of feathers taps the quiet, riffs the static of a summer night. Parrying a fall with tucked claws, balancing wings, its hunched drag quartering the moorlands, feather finials hallucinating hands – what ghost inhabits this fanning thing? Steering too close to us, then clear, past omens, scares – we stand, queer giants, at the dark’s address, no interruption of its watchfulness – this fly-by-night fingering the air. Idling so near it shames us, casts us into shadow – while a drifted whiteness comes to mind, wing of the moon, or whitsun crosswind brushing lightly – claw at a heartstring.

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