Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.

huh?
Lv 4
huh? asked in Arts & HumanitiesPoetry · 1 decade ago

Poem about owls/death?

I can't remember the poem, google wasn't helpful but it went something along the lines

death comes like the wings of owls, quiet and deadly

1 Answer

Relevance
  • libby
    Lv 7
    1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    I do not think this is the answer but it is poem of power, so while I'm here I may as well give you the poem. It is a fine example of run on lines.

    Barn Owl

    by Gwen Harwood

    Daybreak: the household slept.

    I rose, blessed by the sun.

    A horny fiend, I crept

    out with my father's gun.

    Let him dream of a child

    obedient, angel-mind-

    old no-sayer, robbed of power

    by sleep. I knew my prize

    who swooped home at this hour

    with day-light riddled eyes

    to his place on a high beam

    in our old stables, to dream

    light's useless time away.

    I stood, holding my breath,

    in urine-scented hay,

    master of life and death,

    a wisp-haired judge whose law

    would punish beak and claw.

    My first shot struck. He swayed,

    ruined, beating his only

    wing, as I watched, afraid

    by the fallen gun, a lonely

    child who believed death clean

    and final, not this obscene

    bundle of stuff that dropped,

    and dribbled through the loose straw

    tangling in bowels, and hopped

    blindly closer. I saw

    those eyes that did not see

    mirror my cruelty

    while the wrecked thing that could

    not bear the light nor hide

    hobbled in its own blood.

    My father reached my side,

    gave me the fallen gun.

    'End what you have begun.'

    I fired. The blank eyes shone

    once into mine, and slept.

    I leaned my head upon

    my father's arm, and wept,

    owl blind in early sun

    for what I had begun..

Still have questions? Get your answers by asking now.