Mountains her companions;

In the shadow of the highest

Rests the owl– fresh from feeding

Her broken young, her soft calls

A keening to the angry sun

 

She swoops down each day,

Coming home gullet-full

Only to relinquish all she hunts

To her wrinkled charges, sick with this heat.

The weak of this nest will fall–

The strong too, if this weather never breaks.

 

Her call questions: what is in their future?

The owlets are hungry again

But so are the gods

Of forest, mountain, river and scabland–

All she soars above yet still chained to.

Who decides what lives and what dies?