The Night Is Calm And Moonless Poem by Francis Duggan

The night is calm and moonless few stars in the dark sky
And out there in the parkland i hear the boobook cry
Mopoke mopoke the brown owl does call out in the night
The shy nocturnal hunter who hides from the daylight
His voice is unmistakable from nightfall to daybreak
He calls out intermittently on the trees by the town lake
Is he proclaiming territory or trying to woo a mate?
The mopoke call of the boobook owl is not hard to imitate
Not popular with other birds owls and diurnal birds of prey
I have seen them to mob his kind as they tried to sleep by day
For the boobook owls to prey on smaller birds is their natural way
In Nature too each to their own as some do like to say
The sky is dark the moon not out and few stars for to sight
And mopoke mopoke re-echo in the stillness of the night.