Only the white owl

bird white owl feather
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It is only the white owl

From her tall

Pine

Spire

Who

Might see the pinecone grow

And who

Still remembers

Even now, the snow

Drifting across the misted moon

After the embers

Of centuries

Of dark fire.

It was only

A while ago

Among the gold cliffs

That black ravens sounded their raucous calls

Of wisdom-woven prophecies,

They who brought the end of time, at last,

This time that has drawn to its close,

And now the single petal of the rose

Falls.

There glimmer

Within the universe of beings, the silent

Springing feet of the herd of deer

Bounding ever higher,

Ever fast,

On their journey

Across the snow.

Soon,

In the beginning,

The gold face of the setting sun

Will appear

Through silver sheets of rain that shimmer,

While, in the wandering whiffs

Of bitter smoke, will sound the cries

Of yesteryear,

That linger, still heard, echoing among the far cliffs,

The spirit of days

Gone

By.

Now hills swept with snow

Travel farther back to

The land of mists and magic, flown.

There

The wings of butterflies

Unfold in the dawn,

In the beginning

That knows still the ancient ways

And there along the shore that goes to nowhere

The brave one

Walks on alone

In the far country,

The soul of courage,

Portender of knowledge.

The howl

Of the wolf, ascendant,

Will mark

The moment

When the moon

Rises over fields of stars, when Hanuman, hero

Of the earth and the skies,

In the beginning and the ending,

Brings clouds of peace that shine

Transcendent

Through the living fire of the distant dark.

© Copyright Sharon St Joan, 2023

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