They come as close as they can.
The tree line is a frontier edge
between them and the brick barricades.
I imagine them peering over their world
into mine, and though their hooting
may be only a prelude to nesting,
this night they speak
on the multilingual lips of transmission.
When such divergent beings
encounter one another, they meet at a distance,
skirmish and scout. They lookout
from a catbird seat.
All sounds speak of something.
Where light and dark converge
much can be overheard, much discerned.
Tonight the hoot owls speak though
that same interspace, their modulations
are haunting, the way the wind haunts
the very breath in our lungs.
Those long bus rides
between Urbana, Illinois and Wheaton, Maryland
were all in the interspace,
hours of smooth nothingness punctuated
by jangly nothingness
at change points like Cincinnati and Pittsburg.
Blurs in memory, dreamy,
taste of intensly needed sandwiches
and the desperate need to be clean.
Long half-sleep voyages
through fantasy, through needle-sticking
drives, ********, thirst,
looking out of the window for relief,
only to see darkness.
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