Stone Owl Poem by Alan Bruce Thompson

I’ve sat atop the gate post for centuries now,
I have heard many generations of men ask how?
Can a stone bird probe the brain,
Know the truth from a lie and suffer their strain?

The stone sentinel watched as the ambitious peak and wane,
Unknown to the staring men the stone owl took their pain,
So the visitors felt well whenever they passed that way,
They all felt the radiant colors that came from the owl’s grey.

There were two boys that regularly passed by for a while,
They danced and told jokes and tried to make me smile.
My impassive pose made them angry instead,
They stopped telling jokes and threw rocks at my head.

I closed my stone eyes tighter without letting them see,
All of the hurt and anger that they had thrown at me.
For how could they know through all of their adolescent ado,
That stone owls who don’t show it have feelings too!

The boys grew up and came back as men,
With guns over their shoulders they asked each other when,
The stone owl had looked their youthful souls right through,
Then they felt it in their bones that the owl was scanning anew.

Their minds were laid bare, their thoughts written in each face,
Each brain fought with it’s shame, tried to hide the disgrace,
The boys grown men had returned from the war,
And they hoped their atrocious behavior was hidden afar.

For the men had slaughtered innocent children and their mothers,
They followed orders they pleaded, the command came from others.
But they knew they had murdered, they repeated the refrain,
They could never hold their heads high like real men again.