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James Sutherland-Smith

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Screech owls

Like the noise from a litter of new-born kittens
Or loose hinges on an unlatched gate
Which the wind swings forth and gravity tugs back
An unfleshly squealing arises at sunset
By the mustard yellow church in the lindens.

I went out to look armed with a screwdriver
And found not human neglect and absence
But four charcoal-faced Socratic screamers
Shifting from claw to claw in the boughs, an eloquence
Of the great themes of nesting, sex and hunger.

That was the second night, but on the first
You went out alone in your light-green night dress
With milk for something abandoned and in pain.
This is the third night and neither foolish tenderness
Nor fake practicality go out. We fear the worst:

A boy with an air rifle, a drunk with a stone
Getting lucky. Yet round here people do not say
Coals to Newcastle, but owls to Athens
As though the birds were part of local speech. So I pray
That what is commonplace is left alone
By those sensitive to unlucky omens.

 

James Sutherland-Smith lives in Slovakia where he teaches and translates Slovakian poetry with his wife Veira. His last collection was At the Skin Resort (Arc Publications 1999).

Page(s) 56

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