An Owl's Voice

Walking in Los Gatos, we pass 

a rack of sports bras 

in the open air.

Really? I say to myself. 

Has the world changed so much?

And I know that it has. . .

Out Back

Once I heard an owl

through a tunnel from the moon,

imagined it huge

in its eyes, floating down

from the woods toward the lake.

All things moved down,

the life of trees clawed

at the hill, roots rolled

downhill in rivulets

beneath the lantern.

Behind my back, the cottage

slid toward the water

like an ice cube melting.

"See the eyes of the owl,"

my grandmother said, holding

the lantern to the trees

where something stirred, but

even the eyes had closed

into the awful dark.

My grandmother stood lean

and erect, her hair already loose

for the night and waved down

her back like the real woman

in the fairy tale. She said

my name, which was also her

name, said it out at the night

to make me appear, and hold.

Fleda Brown Jackson

Fishing with Blood; poems by Fleda Brown Jackson, Purdue University Press, 1988, page 26.

My grandmother's names were later applied to my two sisters, and I was named for my mother's friend as a compromise choice. It seems like it would be nice to carry a slightly unusual name, like Fleda, forward for your grandmother.

When we are in Michigan, we often hear the voice of the Barred Owl, "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-hoo-hoo. . . "