A great horned owl inveigled me to talk

About exploring darkness, persuasive

Till I agreed. Is this where wanderlust

Began? A hoot that hints where wildness feeds?

Its sharp beak pierced a pinhole in the sky.

I wriggled in, beyond benighted dark,

Baptized by stardust thick enough to cleanse

The past, reversing terrors, shame that I’m

Forbidden to announce except in dreams.

Outwalking my long shadow outwalked pain

Whose lexicon’s imprinted on my brain.

Night’s majesty proposed a holiday —

Vacationing from reason, escaping

In midnight’s monochrome and cloud forest,

Relieved to be apprenticed to its king,

Always reliant on his entourage,

Recruiting aides for sunless pageantry.

For this I halted time-wasting shut-eye,

Grew feathers, shed discredited panic,

Committed to my new apprenticeship,

Convinced high altitude’s superior

To earth, its trash cans, crime, graffiti, grime.

But too soon, temperamental owl withdrew,

Unwilling to comply — unlock the sky—

As if to say, “Not what was meant at all!”

Denied, I questioned why it now refused.

 

Go ask Rossetti’s sweet-tooth Laura if

Removing goblin fruit erased desire.

Ask Aesop’s fox if it still pined for grapes.

Its lunar eyes implored me to retrain

My gaze, accept mundanity, enjoy

Scant years allotted to my fading name.

Abandoned by my feathered friend, released

From night’s immensity, I watched the dull

Sublunary sphere wink. Hurry sundown!