Snowy Owl Near Ocean Shores

A castaway blown south from the arctic tundra

sits on a stump in an abandoned farmer’s field.

Beyond the dunes cattails toss and bend as snappy

as the surf, rushing and crashing down the jetty.

His head a swivel of round glances,

his eyes a deeper yellow than the winter sun,

he wonders if the spot two hundred feet away

is a mouse on the crawl from mud hole

to deer-grass patch.

An hour of wind and sleet whips the air,

nothing darts or passes but the river underground.

A North Pole creature shows us how to last.

The wind ruffles his feathers from crown to claw

while he gazes into zeroes the salt-slick rain.

As a double-rainbow before us arcs

sky and owl, we leave him surrendering

to the echo of his white refrain.