…sometimes it all seems to catch up with me…

 

I found myself an evening sky

and shared it with the moon,

I promised not to mention things

that open ancient wounds,

instead I spoke of tiny birds,

and lonely fields of flight,

and if their music really ends

with the fading of the light,

or if all the stars I’ve ever known

were to fall out of the sky,

would they simply disappear

and never tell me why?

but it seems the evening’s slipped away-

I’m out of stars and song,

the birds have flown their empty sky,

the moon has traveled on…

Chief

...heard an owl...

…outside my bedroom window last night…it’s been said that owls are the only creatures that can accommodate ghosts- I guess it’s not just me that sits alone in the dark occasionally and wonders aloud who might be out there in the shadows…

…I wonder too if it’s true that things come in threes…this morning there was a perfect imprint of a dove on the window…so well defined that one could easily count it’s spread wing feathers…

…don’t know what to make of any of this- I’m neither a superstitious sort nor one for premonitions…still, it does give me pause…

…ah, but the things you recall from childhood…when I was five years old we lived in a two story rental on 7th avenue, just west of 13th street…it was a large house- the owner had it divided up into two separate residences…late one spring evening, just after my brother was born, my old man called us upstairs to share his discovery- a tiny owl perched on a heater duct pipe up near the ceiling …every few moments one could see it’s perfect round eyes blink…

…Irish legend has it that an owl that enters a house must be killed at once, for if it flies away it will take the luck of the house with it…

…Pop shooed the owl out the hallway window into the dark…

…about a month later we heard a tremendous commotion coming from the other half of the house- crying and wailing, furniture breaking…it was the first time I’d seen my mother put an empty water glass up to a wall to try and eavesdrop…as it turned out, the teenage girl next door was killed in a car-train wreck earlier that evening…she and her boyfriend tragically unsuccessful in their attempt to outrace another car to the bowling alley after a school dance…

…it was not long afterward that we moved to another rental on 6th avenue…perhaps in search of a house with its luck still intact…

…my Business Studies class is taking their second exam this evening- no matter how often I explain that there are no bonus points for finishing first, it still seems that they rush to get through the test, so it should be a short night …when I get home, chances are I’ll find a refreshment and go outside to wait for my owl…with the luck he’s saved perhaps we’ll be joined by one of my warmer spirits…I can make the introductions so we’ll both know who it is this time…

…here’s to you, with the luck or without…

…and here’s to the Irish who often have both conditions at once…

Chief