Sunday, February 16, 2014

WHITHER WEATHER #3: BARRED OWL DOWNTOWN IN GRASS VALLEY

by Laura Rodley


Big Brown Eyes / Barred Owl by Gary Fairhead


I am here.
I am not afraid of anything;
you cannot see me.
My voice echoes;
you do not know
from which direction.
I swoop down for the mice
you do not value,
scan your dumpster
since the drought has carried
me so close to your closed windows,
the mice in the desert
and the forest long gone,
drenching rains much too late
for them; they cannot fly.
I am here now,
taking what you do not want.
Look up, those of you
who wish to chase away your fear,
look up into my eyes
and I will teach you. 


Laura Rodley’s New Verse News poem “Resurrection” appears in The Pushcart Prlze XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses (2013 edition). She was nominated twice before for the Prize as well as for Best of the Net. Her chapbook Rappelling Blue Light, a Mass Book Award nominee,  won honorable mention for the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Award. Her second chapbook Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose was also nominated for a Mass Book Award and a L.L.Winship/Penn New England Award. Both were published by Finishing Line Press.  Co-curator of the Collected Poets Series, she teaches creative writing and works as contributing writer and photographer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette.  She edited As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology, Volume I and Volume II.