I was walking up the street the other day\u00a0when I heard something from above. It sounded like wood on wood, as if a drummer had just banged his sticks together. I looked up at a massive oak across the street– which seemed to be in the general vicinity from where the sound came– and saw the shape of a huge bird, perhaps an owl or falcon. It blended in perfectly with the trunk, and only for a moment could I see it’s outline as it took a giant, powerful step to the side. The bird vanished from my sight for a moment, and when I saw it again it was leaning down and into something, tearing and yanking at flesh with it’s beak.<\/p>\n

It was a startling thing to see in downtown Toronto, this unadorned and pitiless majesty.<\/p>\n

Had the bird taken it’s victim in mid-flight, plucking it from unsuspecting air?
\nHad it tracked it’s prey at great velocity, and then it’s sharp, sudden talons piercing the animal, and then the wood upon which the creature had been scurrying?<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

My eyesight is not great, and the bird receded back into the camouflage of the tree. I stared up at that tree– that tree which could have been two centuries old– for a long time, hoping to see that world flicker back into mine, but it did not, and this vivid life of blood and bone would remain known but unseen. A reminder on a cold, November day of this other world, of how quickly, astonishingly and with unsentimental finality, it will one day make it’s presence known to each of us.<\/p>\n

******************************************<\/p>\n

On a winter day while hiking through the woods, Rachelle\u2019s father Terry came across the imprint of an owl\u2019s wings and body in the snow. From the tracks, he could see that it had been following a mouse of some sort, and then swooped down, picking the creature up from the surface and carrying him up and off to death. He took a photograph of the imprint, and it\u2019s amazing to see such a moment crystallized, to see just the shadow of this small and brutal divinity.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

It has always reminded me of this poem by Mary Oliver:
\nWhite Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field
\nby Mary Oliver
\nComing down out of the freezing sky
\nwith its depths of light,
\nlike an angel, or a Buddha with wings,
\nit was beautiful, and accurate,
\nstriking the snow and whatever was there
\nwith a force that left the imprint
\nof the tips of its wings \u2014 five feet apart \u2014
\nand the grabbing thrust of its feet,
\nand the indentation of what had been running
\nthrough the white valleys of the snow \u2014
\nand then it rose, gracefully,
\nand flew back to the frozen marshes
\nto lurk there, like a little lighthouse,
\nin the blue shadows \u2014
\nso I thought:
\nmaybe death isn\u2019t darkness, after all,
\nbut so much light wrapping itself around us \u2014
\nas soft as feathers \u2014
\nthat we are instantly weary of looking, and looking,
\nand shut our eyes, not without amazement,
\nand let ourselves be carried,
\nas through the translucence of mica,
\nto the river that is without the least dapple or shadow,
\nthat is nothing but light \u2014 scalding, aortal light \u2014
\nin which we are washed and washed
\nout of our bones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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