Bog Myrtle & Peat

Owls are easily undone. They’re soft and beckoning, and hawks hunt for them along the wood edge. I well remember the brittle crack of an owl struck amidships by a falcon. The white wings folded into a shuttlecock, and the pieces were strewn across the long grass like shreds of paper.

So they fly in the darkness, and they stash their days in the trunks of trees. If you see an owl hunting in the daylight, read it as a problem. That bird has been pressed into the risk against her will. For all she seeks, she could soon be sought.

There never was a fat owl. The birds carry only what they need to see them through the next few days. Deep snow makes it hard to find mice; heavy rain sops into her feathers and makes it hard to fly. And rain is double damnation, because who can listen for the rustle of rats beneath the din of falling water? They don’t have to fail for long before their bones begin to show; long enough and we find them lying cold and stiff as quills among the hay bales. Hard times draw hunting into human hours and it’s always against her will; it flies against her nature to be seen.

But secrets leak in the drone of summer evenings. I hear an owl calling above the moss and the meadows on the last gasp of daylight, and I strain my eyes to find her among the rushes. It’s not an unusual sound at this time of year, but this feels oddly insistent and demanding. Minutes pass, and the dreary wailing runs on above the other night sounds; a barking doe, a calf woken for a moment from some creamy dream. That’s when I realise that I’m looking too low. She has gone up like a lantern; high into the pale night. She circles and loops above the river, and I see her for a moment against a barcode of summer cloud. It’s a rare show of courage; she is bold and chilling and large against the sky.