The Screech Owl in June

I remember a night in the moonlight with Gary  when the dark side of human myth lay entranced under the spell of Spring, when the Screech Owl spoke his poem at a symposium of the disembodied souls of dead poets, who spoke eloquently to my ears in their special voice - The Dylan Thomas wildcat calling from his hiding place in the dark hills, the Emily Dickinson breeze rising out of the hot Hemingway valley below, ruffling our E.E. Cummings "anyone" hair, speaking like punctuation, among the syllables of our own wordless poem. I remember sitting on the back step of the double wide 60' long love nest that we had all to ourselves for six weeks that summer, his strong, protective arm around me, every message coming in through our senses combining in assonant harmony. I remember the rough stair board under my hand, his arm around me, and our giddy laughter echoing through the sleeping   valley, like an Irish ballad, mossy with time.. We were so happy in the first flush of our fascination with each other.  I can remember wondering over the  brimming cup of time so perfect, being so mesmerized by a sense of its permanence, that when the thought suddenly appeared in my head that night, that, indeed, life would not only move on, but could turn dark again, like a storm after a perfect day, and wash these moments onto a dry beach somewhere to bleach in the sun, I felt incredulous:  How could this perfect night end? I am writing this 20 years later, alone in a distant, more civilized place. My sweet Gary is dead, and the molecules in that step whirl on toward their ultimate dissolution without my hand upon it, but it comforts me to see the same old moon, and to believe that from the warm body of that screech owl has sprung a descendant who is alive in the foothills of the distant Sierra tonight, and singing his shrill poetic song as loudly as his ancestor, who still perches in my memory alive, still breathes, like us, in a magic night when time stopped, and my flesh-dressed soul danced a gossamer dream. Written October 11th, 2001 © on Oct 11 2001 12:00 PM PST, Carole Dudley   0 • 8