What the Owl Sees
A bad winter
the worst since the last one.
The camp had lost its children and horses
now the owl sees her last step.
Separated, not expelled in disgrace,
but her tribe disenthralled,
deprived of care
by deaths unremitting cull.
She, the last to stumble away
from the brow-beaten village
knowing there were no more paths
for her in this bleak land.
Only the moon was not cruel,
its wane glow
lit her up like its own shadow
in the yowling dark.
Now only the owl does not hunt her.
She knows that if she ever saw herself,
so weary and close to the bone,
she would think of herself as prey,
She would let fly one last arrow
for a piercing end, and
let the owl see what it may.
Copyright © Eric Ashford | Year Posted 2023
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