Night Fields Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Owl does not bring down death
With a doctor's pills, or a surgeon's glinting knife

She falls from a height with a cruel and a careless grace,
With an outspread wing and a Pierrot's chalk white face.

She floats in her feathered robes, a forest queen
Falls with the curving claws of her talons poised
Down through the moonlight onto her quivering prey.

Her collar-bone is white as bloodless stones
The air whistles and keens around her wings

Her soul is gloomy, her eyes inscrutable
As tomb stones with the lettering worn off

The lust of hunger drives us, one and all
The spur to fuel the flesh for one more day