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| Flickr Creative Commons photo by VirtualEyeSee |
Choosing Teams
There are owls in the neighborhood now.
Two barred owls wondering,
“Who cooks for you?”
They wake us in the middle of the night.
We worry about the littlest skunk.
The one with white angel wings.
The silent puff of scent who cleans up dropped seed
beneath our bird feeders each dusk.
We are simply spectators in this backyard drama.
Is it bad form to cheer equally
for predator and for prey?
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018
No! It is NOT bad form. I totally know what you mean!
ReplyDeleteI think my favorite image was the olfactory one that described the skunk as a "silent puff of scent who cleans up dropped seed". This time of year, and again in the spring, I come outside in the morning and can smell those night visitors. At times like those I can *almost* imagine how my dog experiences the world.
Thanks for this poem!
I'm accused of bad form always by my children: I want the underdog to win, or after "our" team wins I express admiration or condolences for "their" team, thus proving I was never really for "our" team. I deny that this, or that skunk = owl, is bad form.
ReplyDeleteFor me the center of the poem is the same as for Steve. I wondered about the angel wings--made it seem like the baby skunk had already been dispatched to heaven!