OFFERING, OMEN, FRIEND
From the 2024 Collection "Sixteen Odes From a Toad's Repose"
I once found
in what appeared
to be cistern carved
within a boulder,
an owl’s wing,
a barn owl.
Someone placed it there
so that I might fly.
And I did fly from that very place,
I took flight for the first time
after finding the owl’s wing!
Something without a body
accompanied me as we
soared through the day’s
last rays of light.
To go to a high place is dangerous,
to see a state of complexity and
a language whose proclamations
are succinct and final,
to heed an understanding
which yields gross, life changing
obedience,
is a lofty gambit.
It’s permutation is one,
It is also known as one hundred plus eight,
She is the Eagle at daybreak,
the Owl at nightfall.