Little Owl Who Lives in the Orchard
by: Mary Oliver
His beak could open a bottles,
and his eyes--when he lifts their soft lids--
go on reading something
just beyond your shoulder--
Blake, maybe,
or the Book of Revelation.
Never mind that he eats only
the black-smocked crickets,
and dragonflies if they happen
to be out late over the ponds, and of course
the occasional festal mouse.
Never mind that he is only a memo
from the offices of fear--
it's not size but surge that tells us
when we're in touch with something real,
and when I hear him in the orchard
fluttering
down the little aluminum
ladder of his scream--
when I see his wings open, like two black ferns,
a flurry of palpitations
as cold as sleet
rackets across the marshlands
of my heart,
like a wild spring day.
Somewhere in the universe,
in the gallery of important things,
the babyish owl, ruffled and rakish,
sits on its pedestal.
Dear, dark, dapple of plush!
A message, reads the label,
from that mysterious conglomerate:
Oblivion and Co.
The hooked head stares
from the blouse of dark, feathery lace.
It could be a valentine.
The heart is a wild place, full of darkness and light, the scream of frog and cricket and owl. We all have hidden corners and copses in our lives that we avoid. Maybe because they frighten us or bring back painful memories. So, we just don't go there, stick to paths that are familiar and, therefore, safe.
I have had people in my life who've hurt me, caused wounds so deep that, twenty-plus years after the fact, they still haven't scarred over. The marsh and swamp still fresh and terrifying.
Of course, only people you deeply love can deeply hurt you. People who are as much a part of you as an arm or leg or soul. It's simple to ignore the slings and arrows of casual acquaintances or strangers because their opinions and thoughts just don't have that razor's edge. A loved one, however, is that owl in the orchard, shaking the night with the aluminum ladder of his scream.
Mary Oliver finds the little owl both thrilling and alarming, as love, in all its forms, always is. To love something or someone is to lay bare the tenderest part of yourself. It's a gamble. Either you end up looking into the hooked face of a valentine, or you become a cricket or festal mouse--a feast for the hungry Oblivion and Co.
If you want love in your life, you have to be willing to be haunted, hunted, and, sometimes, hurt. I have been all of those things at one point or another. Would I change any of the choices I've made? No, because love is worth it, despite all the accompanying dangers.
Somewhere in the universe, in the gallery of important things, Saint Marty sits on a pedestal, with a label identifying him as: A fool for love.
No comments:
Post a Comment