The Barred Owl

I found this beautiful poem by Richard Wilbur. It makes me think about the nocturnal world outside of my bedroom window, the creatures that lurk in the dark. Creatures with eyes specifically designed to pick up even the smallest traces of light, their pupils dilating to the point of pitch blackness.

This is the poem:

A Barred Owl

by Richard Wilbur

The warping night air having brought the boom

Of an owl’s voice into her darkened room,

We tell the wakened child that all she heard

Was an odd question from a forest bird,

Asking of us, if rightly listened to,

“Who cooks for you?” and then “Who cooks for you?”

 

Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,

Can also thus domesticate a fear,

And send a small child back to sleep at night

Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight

Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw

Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.

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Your fellow biologist, Ashley Marie