Photo & Poem by Bill Keller
All day, I stayed inside, gulping
bad news from my phone, waiting
for the snow to end–the plow.
Past sunset, I went down, thinking
only of where to place my feet,
when a bold note startled me,
so loud it could have come
from just above my head.
I looked up with branches striped
and knotted against the sky,
hoping to spot the barrel shape,
hear a reply sung from some
distant, wild, woodland place.
Snow slipped off a pine. The owl
burst noiselessly across the lawn.
Though my empty hands grew numb,
and the windows of my house
glowed yellow, warm, I lingered
before going in, feeling
the forest stretching away, immense.
my ears feather-covered and cavernous.