time passes

2:00 am
Crickets creak a tripwire grid
across the garden.

4:00 am
The hoot of an owl glides like a shadow
from the heart of the tallest pine.

5:30 am
The rooster’s crowing wakens the hens
who peck and pick, unravelling
the fraying edges of the night.

6:00 am
Now, all the valley dogs are worrying
at the straggling ends of dark; they tug
and bark and run with them towards the morning.

(A draft – or perhaps just notes for a poem – which is very much a variation on a theme. I posted an earlier interpretation almost exactly two years ago as Alarm)

Incidentally, trying to find out what type of owl I was writing about, I found the Owl Pages site with its extensive selection of recordings. And having cross-referenced with the Iberia Nature site, I think I must be thinking of a tawny owl.