Owl

In North Carolina, I exercised a good deal of self-control, buying very little. But . . . I could not resist this little papier-mache fellow I saw hanging in a cooperative gallery window (along with other birds including a bluebird, a cardinal, and a goldfinch).

Owls fascinate me: they eat the entire object of prey; you must look hard to see one; they make fantastic noises. Once, an owl alighted on a deck rail while Lucy and I relaxed in the late afternoon. It landed, briefly, directly above her, and only as I registered it on its taking off did I see the baby cardinal in its talons. Another time, in mid-summer, at about 2:30 am before my graduate class began its study of Thoreau's Walden, I awakened suddenly to the deep-chested hoo-hoo-hooing of a barred owl, which must have been perched at the peak of the roof directly above my bedroom window. Just as silently as it had arrived, it disappeared after four haunting cries. As suddenly as I had awakened, I fell back into deep sleep. Another time, my friends Florence and Jere and I saw a white owl swoop across the hood of my car as we drove home from Trink's after enjoying the evening performance of the College's Lessons and Carols. In my book, owls are majestic and mysterious.

Some Native Americans say that when the owl calls your name, you're going to die. This I remember from a beautiful little book called I Heard the Owl Call My Name. I doubt this legend, but I long to have another owl visit my house in the stillness of night.