They moved into our back yard. A family, uninvited. They took over the space they wanted and claimed it as their own. There was something odd going on out there. Strange sounds. That hurriedness that sounds like hiding. Getting away with something. Taking what does not belong to them. Acting like it is their own.
Through frozen mist, I saw one of them, looking at me. Suspicious. Looking at me like I didn’t have the right to be there. Thinking I didn’t belong there. Like it was their place, not mine. Looking right into my eyes, not blinking at all.
He stared me down. And then he flew away to the west. He settled in a cedar tree, beside the windmill. I heard a muffled sound above me. I saw his mate duck out of sight into the hollow of the tree. I heard the squawking-then hushed squeaks of the owlets. A growling bark floated to the hollow tree from the cedar in the west. He was signaling danger.
Me.
I was their danger. I hadn’t thought of me in that way before.
Somehow ashamed, embarrassed, I trudged back to the house in the bitter, icy cold. I turned and looked west just in time. I saw him fly back to the hollow tree. Gracefully, he folded his wings and disappeared into the middle of the dark trunk. And I heard the soft sounds of a family reunited.
Some things are the same for God’s creatures. Great horned owl or human. Family. Together.
Once inside in the old house; my boots off, snow melting on the floor, this poem came to mind. It speaks for the owl family, together in the tree outside. And the cold honking of geese, looking for the warmest cold place to spend their night together, as a flock. It speaks for you and for me.
Axioms for Wilderness
by John O’Donohue
“Alive to the thrill
Of the wild.
Meet the dawn
On a mountain.
Wash your face
In the morning dew.
Feel the favor of the earth.
Go out naked to the wind,
Your skin
Almost Aeolian.
With the music inside,
Dance like there is no outside.
Become subtle enough
To hear a tree breathe.
Sleep by the ocean,
Letting yourself unfurl.
Like the reeds that swirl
Gradually on the sea floor.
Try to watch a painting from within:
How it holds what it never shows,
The mystery of your face,
Showing what you never see.
See your imagination dawn
Around the rim of your world.
Feel the seamless silk of the ocean
Womb you in ancient buoyancy.
Feel the wild imprint of surprise
When you are taken in by your lover’s eyes.
Succumb to warmth in the heart
Where divine fire glows.”
To Bless the Space Between Us A Book of Blessings
--John O’Donohue
Yorumlar