The Owl of Nottingshire Church

Beneath the singing glass is a brick tower where the gargoyles spit raspberries and whistle at passerby On top cracked stained glass and crumbling masonry Pigeons roost in its eaves, their feathers snowing on the ground The clouds pass over the wilting copper vaults The once-proud buttresses sweeping endlessly to the sky Ivy creeps pitilessly onward, green upon green and stone It noses its way into hidden nooks where the beetles sleep Underneath saint's feet they hide Safe from the wind that slips through the weathered brown pews The bats here hang from the supports, twitching their flaring noses at the mice far below Pitying them for their puny arms While the mice look up, pitying their cousins for their ungainly legs As the owl pities them all, for he is the one who perches on the singing glass He surveys his cathedral with sharp yellow eyes, struck through by blackness His wings spread over his dominion, unshakable His talons grip the metal that hold the ceiling high, feathers twitching over tensed muscles With his call the pigeons freeze, beady eyes wide with terror With his silent wingbeat the ivy barely rustles His flashing eye makes the mice flee into their holes beneath the bricks The bats cling tightly to their tapestries Who are they to question the undisputed? The owl knows his place at the top of the tower And his subjects know theirs underneath the world.