To see the twilight white Owl wavering over the dew-mist

Startles my heart, a mouse in its house,

  remembering a dim past

 

When we were only the weight of shrews, maybe, and

  everything ate us

In a steaming, echoing jungle of night-flying alligators,

 

And the dawn-chorus shook the swamps, a booming

  orchestra

Where Brontosaurs were merely the flutes, and land-whales

  beat on the drum of the ear –

 

It has all sunk into the fern-fringed forest pool of the Owl’s

  eye,

But it reaches over the farm like a claw in the Owl’s

  catspaw cry.

 

The Owl sways, weighing the hushed world, his huge gaze

  dry and light

As a blown dandelion clock, or the moon-husk of the

  oldest night.

 

 

from the collection ‘What is the truth?’