When the Owls Left the Hangar

There were special things become commonplace
And oddly, this is a different time.
I had become used to hearing the owls,
Not noticing how it would be to lose
Their cry till I found something not the same.
It is different now and nothing feels
As it once did and the owls could not wait.
 
I watch moonlight decorate the river
And think of other days. It is the owls
Who have made the difference and perhaps
They will return. It is the owls crying
Across the land, their notes that would hover
Above the dark town like cathedral bells.
It is the owls and the silence that keeps
Them in our memory now, renewing
 
Something we had taken as commonplace
But always in the hanger. Always here
Though in a different time. So people
Leaving the Black Rabbit or opening
A window in the castle might feel breeze
From the hanger tonight. And remember
How once it carried the owls’ cries in pale
Moonlight into a strange, unending song.
 
There is too much time to think of these things
But still we keep listening for an owl
And leave the river to its moonlit ways.
We look for a time to live in when lives
Would be framed by commonplace happenings
That we might soon recognize as special,
Find from owls in the night, parenthesis
In which to keep belief and house our loves.
 

Ian Caws

in collection Founder’s Day, 2020, Dempsey & Windle,
ISBN 978-1-1913329-10-5