Owl Of Delight
Many creatures have crossed my path while out jogging over the past few years. Dozens of chipmunks, deer, red foxes, rabbits and a handful of black rat snakes. While out running in Florida I even stepped over a dead aardvark. But today was the best. A barred owl flew just a few feet in front of me, then landed on a tree branch and stared, radiating cool wisdom. I stared back, while jogging stupidly on the spot. I haven’t seen an owl in the wild since I was 12 years old, and never from this close up.
A sparrow, likely protecting its young, tried to mob the owl, but it was dismissed with a perfunctory flap of a wing. I kept staring, but didn’t want to outstay my welcome. So I turned my back on the bird and continued running, shouting out loud, “Wow! Fuck! Wow!” Occasionally, even a 44-year-old house-dad gets to burst out through his wrinkled, weary cynicism and enjoy a moment of wide-eyed astonishment. Magnificent.
4 comments:
"Wide-eyed" is very appropriate for an owl. What do you see when you look into an owl's eyes? Billy Bunter was known as "The Owl of the Remove".
I'd describe the owl's look as one of lofty disdain for the human condition. "Look at you in your shorts having to go out jogging to stay fit. I stay in shape by primal hunting, and then I head back to my tree to read Dostoevsky's Notes From The Underground." Although apparently owls are no cleverer than any other birds - like all us pseudo-intellectuals, they've just managed to cultivate the right image.
Owls have no anus, which means they are the only animal that by definition cannot enjoy amour à la grecque. Hence their air of superiority.
Thanks for the Juncoes CD. Bendigeidfran rocks gently to its darker moments.
Hey Ian -
I liked this one a lot. Nature can indeed be magnificent. Standing on the remote shores of Lake Superior is better than drugs.
As I read this post I flashed on Bernard Sumner saying that he saw his first tree at age nine. In a documentary about Joy Division. Hmmmm.
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