Posts Tagged ‘Great Horned Owl’
windy October drive
On Monday, I went on a drive to Cambridge Narrows, to visit an antique store and a roadside market. My goal: to buy some Nancy Drew mystery books for my collection and some pumpkins for Halloween.
It was a blustery day, windy enough to put some whitecaps on the St. John River…
The wind was especially evident along the former Trans-Canada Highway, where dry leaves have gathered in all the ditches. Since only a few vehicles use this older highway, the leaves blow into the roadway…
The day had a luminous quality, in spite of the wind. Most of the reds are gone from the trees, leaving the yellows of the poplars, the rusty-orange of the oaks and the gold of the tamaracks…
I had a successful day. I bought some small pumpkins at a roadside stand…

three little pumpkins from the roadside vegetable stand (the faint eyes in the background are the amber eyes of our owl-andirons)
I also added five books to my collection of Nancy Drew mysteries…
~
~
andiron
~
wrought owl with amber eyes
perches on the hearth
hears a call in the forest
six syllables and silence
~
Great-horned Owl, light gathered
at the back of his eyes,
and the oscillating branch
after wings expand and beat
~
iron owl longs for a glimpse
of the sickle moon
the shadow of a mouse
sorting through dry leaves
~
in this cramped space
night woods are brought to their essence
fibre and bark, sparks and fire
luminous eyes
~
~
Copyright Jane Tims 2012
sounds in the silence #1
If niche has colour, it also has sound. Some of those sounds are soothing, the sound of a babbling brook, or the wind in the Red Pine. Some sounds are alarming, the cry of a child, or the squeal of brakes. At my office, there are multiple sounds in the background – people talking, computers whirring, copiers copying, printers printing. When there is a power outage, I am amazed at the silence of the building, and wonder how I can possibly work with all the noise.
When I can’t sleep, I turn to a trick my Mom taught me – I count the sounds in the sleeping house. Last week, a welcome sound was added to the usual repertoire, the three part hoot of a Great Horned Owl. Hoo-Hoo-Hoo Hoo-o Hoo-o. It was a gentle but penetrating sound and it ruled the night. The owl hooted three times at about five minute intervals and then I fell asleep.
Not long ago I went for a walk in the grey woods and heard a sound I have heard so often before, the grating squeal of two trees rubbing together. These trees, a Balsam Fir and a Grey Birch, have tried to grow into the same space and now they reproach one another in an endless competition.
fear of heights
~
as dizzying to look up
in the forest
as down
into the abyss
the trees taper so
~
they lean
birch
against fir
rubbed raw
where branches touch
and reach for one another
~
and sudden, wrenching sounds
a branch swings back or breaks
loosened by a squirrel
or burdened where crows complain
~
or where a warbler scolds
teacher teacher teacher
~
© Jane Tims 1996