The Moon Seems Unaware

Firstly, explain it to me. The ‘Barn’ descriptor. I am an Owl, I may have three roosts, which makes me classier than your typical ‘House’ human, substantially better than your typical ‘Trailer Park’ human.

But I digress, and I am being petty like a shrew, which, by the way, are as delicious as they sound.

That is not a compliment, and while sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, it is a known fact that shrews taste like shit.

Shakespeare didn't write, 'The Taming of the Succulent', though, and not to sully one name with another, I believe that someone named E.L. James made a miserable attempt to.

Yes, I read. I am an Owl.

And again, I am being petty, but I am an owl, and you are allowed such allowances when you can cut through the night sky without even a whisper.

Imagine that for a moment, moving in silence. In darkness, with no fear, only passion, and intent.

Without even a whisper, and yet I can hear the beat of your heart, the snap of the smallest, softest blade of grass.

That fellow, a friend of a friend of a friend of mine, Walt Whitman, be damned.

As you likely already know I am a fabulous creature. Ridiculously handsome in that haunting way, oft-misunderstood in that haunting way. I have been known as the, ‘Demon Owl’, the ‘Ghost Owl’, a harbinger of doom, though I have a mahjong buddy who is an Albatross that will argue with self-righteous indignation to hold that title tightly to his puffy, white chest, and, yes, I do understand the irony. Though we all know that irony died with Socrates.

"I drank what?"

Answer a question with a question.

But again, I digress and deflect.

I am Gary, though my given name is Gioranni, and I am in love.

I am Gary, and I am in love with a Field Mouse.

Then again, why the indicator.? A mouse is a mouse .. is a mouse regardless of its living situation.

Again I digress, and it is because love frightens me, because, as a species, I am supposed to mate for life, hunt constantly to feed my hatchlings and my wife, soar like a less prideful and more fortunate Icarus through the night sky, listen for the sorrowful, little ones bound by gravity that make that terrible mistake of movement.

In which they then make a meal for me.

And the family I am supposed to have.

I am Gary. Tyto Alba. And they are these little, breathing things with heartbeats that I will make into nothing more than pellets.

Laugh about that for a moment, not because it is a cruel thing, because our animal kingdom doesn't believe in cruelty, that is the bipeds purview, but we do believe in love, the whole mating for life thing.

There's no fuck and go home .. unless you're a Praying Mantis, and all of us know that those bitches are batshit crazy, no offense to bats, I know a few good ones and I have eaten more than a few good ones, made them into pellets, or as you might say, disgorged them from their mortal coil. A Praying Mantis, and I call them simply a, 'Mantis' because, really, what animal isn't an Atheist? Pardon me, except for you bipeds... and dogs.

A Mantis is not praying, they are plotting, and they are Dung Beetle crazy, and that is only crazy because as a Dung Beetle you are shoveling shit your entire life, not biting the head off a sex partner crazy. Also, I can use the descriptor, 'Dung' because that is a vocational choice, as well as the fact that it is simply hilarious.

What I do, my vocational choice, is to hunt on buoyant wingbeats, making the work that you have done, all the things that you have felt, asked for, begged for, received, and given, every breath that you have taken... without point or meaning.

I make you into a pellet. Truly a mortal coil.

And yet, one spectacular evening , with a snow of the kind of the flakes so large that you could see the tapestry in each one, with a snow of the kind that made my silent flight ever more muted, filled, with every caress of the sky, ever more with ill intent.

You can die and still have a heartbeat. Snow can defy its purpose and flow upwards rather than downwards.

An Owl can fall in love with a Mouse.

And so there she was, a morsel, barely a meal, making her way across a field (a quick reminder that irony is, in fact dead). I watched her from afar, and as the moon broke through the clouds I pushed the sky behind me and rushed at her, pinning her into the newly fallen snow.

I don't know why I asked, I never have, never do, but it was something in her odd, little eyes.

"Eyes of gray - A sodden quay

driving rain and falling tears."

'Last words?"

I understand the cliche, but I was living in the moment, wasn't particularly hungry, and had been recently bereft of decent conversation ever since the crows moved in. No wonder you call them a, "Murder".

She sighed, so quietly that even I almost missed how the snow caught and held up its gentleness, and then she said, "The moon is unaware of you."

It's a funny thing. Death with a heartbeat, snow that can fly upwards rather than to that place that it belongs.

I am in love with a mouse.