Storm Warning

The barred owl calls, Who cooks for you?
Who cooks for you all?
Along the cobbled

streets now clear of cars, the lamps come on
at dusk. Banks of clouds haunch low on the horizon,

waiting for the soup to boil. Where’s the hail
of locusts, the plague of boils, the black

deaths clustered like walnuts on the branch?
Squirrels forage in the quiet before the storm.

Bead by bead they’ll hide their store
of afflictions, enough to eat through the cold.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

9 Replies to “Storm Warning”

  1. You liked that “Who cooks for you?” call translation, eh? Barred owls around here always leave a short pause in the middle, like this:

    “Who cooks — for you?”

    The second time through, the “all” sounds deep and gurgly, the sound of air escaping around a knife blade embedded in a human throat.

    This might be regional dialect, though!

    I liked “waiting for the soup to boil”.

    1. That’s a very poetic description of the “all” part, Larry! I don’t think ours are quite that gutteral, nor do they pause in the middle. But almost all birds have regional accents, as I’m sure you know.

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