The Owl Called Her Name
The nests of the two-leggeds are dangerous. When I was newly fledged, I followed a rat into one. I caught the rat, but found myself trapped.
I bruised my wings and lost many feathers, but could not find my way out.
Parched with thirst, and almost starved – even with the rat – I waited. Then, one of their children came, and opened a hole. I fled into daylight. The crows found me, but I reached a dark wood, and I lived.
The nests of the two-leggeds are dangerous … and yet, sometimes there is food inside. I never follow again. But sometimes, waiting is rewarded.
Within my territory, there is such a place. Squirrels, chipmunks, field mice: all find their way inside. They are not trapped. For them, it is a great tree, a burrow; and they make their nests and trails in it. Therefore, my trail through the air always passes close by. I listen … for the tiny squeaks, the light scratching, the flash of movement. There are plenty of trees for waiting.
Lately, I share this place with another. A hunter. Every night he has come, for a quarter turn of the hidden moon.
This cold one has no hunger for the feathered tribes, so I keep my paths without fear.
He pays no heed to the little prey, so I do not begrudge him the choicest limb.
And ever since the second night, he has gone inside to wait. More than once, his presence has driven the small ones out … to me. So, now, I look for him. Wait for him.
For waiting is rewarded.
This night he comes late: long, long after dark, with a cold sea wind on his trail.
His prey lies inside. He knows the ways of this nest. He no longer lingers in the tree, but glides up the sheer wall – as silent as I on my soft-feather wings – and opens and enters, easily.
From my place, I watch his hunting, and wait for mine.
Each night it is the same. His prey sleeps on a shelf. He takes his perch on the rocking branch. She lies before him, yet he never swoops. Though his great thirst burns, and spears the night with pangs of want.
This night is no different from any other. She moves and whispers under her coverings of sleep; and he crouches, still as death, on his branch. His posture is drawn up and hunched, like mine. His eyes stare dark, like mine. Perhaps we are related by more than chance, this hunter, he and I.
A very long time, we wait. The air grows colder, and icy snow begins to send its needles down.
There.
Sleeping still, she turns and sighs, and then … she speaks his name. Frozen on the branch, he has no voice – not even breath to carry it. But all of the arrows in his heart are changed to flowers.
There is no hunting here.
I spread my wings, and answer for him as I leave.
Is … a bell … ahhh … rings behind me in the skittering air.
A/N: The Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka'wakw ~ a First Nations people of Vancouver and British Columbia) believe that if one hears the owl call one's name it means that one's days are drawing to a close.
The sound of the owl's call may be heard here: colon double slash www dot nps dot gov / subjects / sound / sounds-spotted-owl dot htm