Town Owl

Cooped up under coloured glass,
he rustles away the day
in the crippled bell tower,
unaware that these
lumps of dead metal
could ever chime.

Ignorant of bustle and motor noise
and the panicked cares of the day,
he occasionally stirs to
scratch a cruelly curved beak
under downy chest feathers.

But aaah, by night.

He glides effortlessly,
faster than thought,
more silent than the grave.

He pins it with his sight:
no small, squeaking creature
could ever escape his attention.

Or his claws.

Hooting softly with the upwind,
he soars over the gaudy lights.

Not cruel, but ignorant of care.
Not pre-meditated
but none the less murder.

Added @ 02:29 PM to Poetry category on March 18, 1993