The Elf Owl

 

A cold moon cuts the desert

bluing a saguaro where the elf owl lives,

blue darkness, blue wings, frosting

the dusk-dabbed tumbleweed.

 

Unchain me to the other world

beneath crystal mountains, juniper flamed,

floating among washes and prickly pear

in the Sonoran night

as ocotillos flicker wraithlike in the stars

and globed eyes open

to secret rats and Gila monsters

scuttling under the dappled wheel of heaven.

 

Chili peppers, threaded like ears on adobe walls,

listen to me shake in the pure air

hoping to shiver into full being.

I must wake in a winged blooming

while paved roads, modems, airplanes

cannot drum my heart with my hymn of owl blood.

I shall use solitude until I only covet my breath

hooting around the barrel cactus.

 

My body opens slowly

as the elf owl flurries inside me.

My toes become talons

as I fly westward

where my old self evaporates

and my song flowers after rain.

---

 

Eric Fisher Stone lives in Fort Worth, Texas, where he graduated from Texas Christian University. His poems have appeared most recently in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, The Blue Collar Review, quantum poetry magazine, and are forthcoming in Third Wednesday, Eunoia Review, The Lyric, and Uppagus. 

Photo Credit: Terry L. Sohl is an avid bird photographer from South Dakota. Elf Owl. May 7th, 2008. Near Tucson, Arizona. Canon 20D, 400 5.6L