A Mortal Owl

Contributor: Billie Elizabeth Zehendler

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Why flies the owl? I think I know.
because it makes him happy
full of joy, like a vivid rainbow,
I watch and wish I could take wing
so easily.

The only other sound is the break,
of distant waves and birds awake
to sing the coming dawn
into being.

I would sing
if I too could take wing
lift freezing feet
from fetid soil
and see what lays beyond
the reddening rim of dawn.


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