Against winter sky:
dark, empty, still…
all is nearly nigh.
Lonely hoot begins
stirs silence shrill
silence spins.
Then the night
slowly reverberates
stillness to light.
Twilight shrills;
hooot, hoot, hoot
melts the chills.
Owls sing, slip,
steal, sink words
pages to keep.
Today at d’Verse, Dora shared with us the angst some poets experience when looking at the blank page. She asked us to write our poem using an animal metaphor for how words are expressed on a blank page. I chose the wren.
I liked her quote from Annie Proulx which said:
“You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page.”
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Patti Wolf 
I LOVE this. I love owls, and I love the way you’ve brought them to life here. I especially love these lines:
“Then the night
slowly reverberates
stillness to light.”
“Owls sing, slip,
steal, sink words
pages to keep.”
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Thank you owl friend
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Wise snowy owl is patient and hidden at times.
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They are hard to find in 40 feet pine treee☺️
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Beautifully expressed. I find owls lovely creatures.
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Thank you
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Love the sounds, the imagery of the owl and stillness to light theme. The quote is very inspiring. Hope all is well Patti!
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Thanks Grace. Most of my poetry is now on a FB private site. Patti Wolf Scribbling Spiritual Sand. I pop in once in awhile at dVerse for a challenge ☺️
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A beautiful poem .. the owl lends itself to the challenge perfectly.
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Thank you.
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Beautiful as always.
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Thanks
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Owl poetry resonates with me, Patti, as I often hear owls composing their poetry I the tree at the end of our garden when I get up in the early hours; I’m familiar with the ‘lonely hoot’ and love the sibilance that makes me shiver in the lines:
‘stirs silence shrill
silence spins’.
You have also captured that time of the morning in:
‘Then the night
slowly reverberates
stillness to light.
Twilight shrills’.
I hope the owls continue to ‘sing, slip, steal, sink words pages to keep’.
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I include them in my fiction too ☺️
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What a beautiful scene you paint for us, Patti! The voice of the owl calling, “Then the night/slowly reverberates/stillness to light” — captures that sense of a poet’s questing for “light” which then distills the calls in its warmth to “sing” words onto the blank page. Utterly entrancing, and so revealing of poetic inspiration. Thank you so much for joining in the prompt!
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You make it sound so romantic
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For me, the poem tells of a creative process that is not lonesome, but in tune with Nature, and I think that is something magickal.
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I do love the thought of an owl bringing your words, perhaps as dreams in your sleep?
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With an open window many times the owls have whispered in my ear.
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Patti, you beautifully capture the quiet magic of words on a blank page.
To me, your verses resonate with the essence of the creative process, expressing the love for the shape of stories and sentences on the page. Well done!
~David
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You captured my thought process!
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It’s so nice to write at night… that lonely, quiet time with only the hoot of an owl. Wise words do come…unfortunately these days the night owl in me goes to bed well before the magic hour. 🙂
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