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Writer's pictureThe Red Wheelbarrow Poetry

crossing the flight path of an owl

Lucy Alexander


Tonight, without a breath of warning

I cross the flight path of an owl

frozen in the windscreen's frame.

A glimpse of creamy wings arced wide across the draining sky

their freckled undersides rich, soft-feathered

supping the airstream's lift.

It rises, then is gone

to some street perching.


I don't look back – I'm driving.


The intimacy

that cushioned body

soft-feathered trajectory

recalls the early hours, when wakened by its lucid cry above the reeded ceiling

with whispered reverence my own mate’s voice

– the owl –

always singular

although from some perimeter roost

its mate replies.


Dense velvet darkness draws me closer to his softening body

as sleep resumes.

I tilt my head to hear the owl more clearly

to sense his breathing at my ear.


Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow with the Life Riting Collective on 21 July 2022


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