​

“Little one” is too modest a title, as this little barn owl is so grand. Her grandeur lies in her posture.

A posture she took when her short life was near. She comforted herself in her impossible situation with what looks like calm. I didn’t hear her cries, although she was so close to my front door, underneath the Elderberry bush, tucked in between chainlink fence and chickenwire. 

The chickenwire is attached to the chainlink.  This layer is an attempt to keep the rattlesnakes out. Seldom one walks in. But right here the two fences had a space between them about a foot wide.  How she ended up there I don’t know.  But when I found her, she took my breath away, her own breath already taken a while ago.  I gave her a glass case, all her own, and a light to light up her face.

I positioned her on a glove to support her posture comfortably, the way I held her when I brought her in. 

 I built her case to match the size of this humble cabinet.  In the drawers are a couple of tattered books,

as a life in tatters.  Echoing our own tatters in life.  String, standing in for connections and constrains,

an old flight map once giving us direction, a glove holding a wrist, holding steady or holding back.

That beat up light, of course still lights up.  Light masters dark times. 

 

Ah, just look up again, just absorb her gaze as if she is embracing you, nodding with affirmation.