The Owl Poem by Gert Strydom

You loved the wild doves and their calls
was to you something romantic,
between the apricot and peach trees
the sparrows, weavers and redbreasts
you did at times with breadcrumbs feed.

The mynahs to you were visiting pets
that could be learned to talk
and the barbet another beautiful woodpecker
but not the owl.

One night it did arrive to compete for rats
with the aggressively territorial Jack Russell
that would kill them and line them up
at the back door.

The dog barked and growled to drive it away,
saw the owl as another kind of intruding prey
and where it hissed and hooted its dismay
from high up in a oak tree

you were convinced that it was bringing some ill,
that it was calling the angel of death on someone.