By: Art Trustin Burros
January 17, 2005

The Barn is familiar to him,
Yet his huge green eyes stare at the aging boards of the walls
As if he had arrived for the first time
He is able to see in the twilight of the evening with no difficulty
He can make out each dark knot,
Each unique crack splitting, curving, or beginning along every sequential board
He even sees the gossamer threads of long abandoned spiders’ webs,
Strands of life to take life preserved in the dead of winter
He turns his head, looking as if he is fully conscious of this movement,
But it is an effortless gesture to better reference a wave,
A contingent pulse motionless behind the wall
Lids cover two green orbs highlighted by the moon,
Shining between the warped, aged planks of the wall,
Then the lids rise,
Still not disclosing the intensions behind the black pupils,
The sound scratching and patting along the wall
Within the silence of a cold awareness,
Draws attention to itself unknowingly

A mouse trots toward a dark corner of an empty barn
The mouse is making the nightly rounds of a conditioned fish
He heads to the corner like a fish to the surface when there are ripples,
Ripples from an insect,
Ripples, from the fruit of a past prize
In mid stride there is a squeal,
A warm beat of flesh and air and the faint cracking of tiny bones
The mouse feels nothing but denial of pain
And the sharpness in between
The pain becomes dread as the tiny head enters the warmth of,
Not a womb,
But a tomb
Fear envelops the tiny animal
And its heart leaps into necessary absence before digestion can burn sustenance

The owl roosts on a rafter,
Feeling the warmth of the wood created by his own down
He feels a lump high in his chest where a void once existed
The mouse was nothing more than a sound to him,
Its soft patting, short, distressed squeal, rapid heart beat as it passed through his beak
He had no fear of it
He did not fully see it,
Except for a fuzzy blur and the distinct whip of a tail as it went into his beak
The owl thought
I have no fear of this small pitiful creature that I have eaten
I did not even see it, and still
I swooped down and took it as a bear snatches berries from a bush
It is strange that bigger creatures,
Creatures that commune with many of their kind,
Creatures that compliment one another’s intelligence,
Creatures that find my way of thinking less common,
Less refined,
Less necessary,
Should be afraid of such a small creature as this mouse

The owl thought about the warmth of the southern climate
He thought that maybe he had been hasty in his judgment
The fear of others should not concern him
If a larger creature should dwell on its fear,
Find safety in numbers,
And turn in terror at the sight of a mouse,
Such a creature should tolerate his presence
He had wings and freedom
If others should raise their trumpets against his imagination,
Then he would fly above them
And land upon their backs again,
His talons gripping tightly

As the snow sparkled in the sunrise,
The owl left the barn
And watched his shadow moving across a cold, white blanket
Over the horizon the brown earth waited
Large amounts of wrinkled gray matter stood idle
Waiting to be disturbed
And wakened from its daily routine