Owl Monologue
by Paul John Roach
“It’s good to be nothing,”
Said the owl in the windless night.
“Only you know my meaning, mouse,
Skittering in the apparent darkness.
Nothing is everything
That’s what they say,
The wise, like me.
I perceive
And I am successful.
It’s the power of positive thinking
But with a negative spin
When it comes to the victim
Of success, eh?
Don’t worry, we’re reborn
According to our acquiescence
To nothing’s rigid plan.
Wait, that can’t be right,
But it can’t be wrong either
According to some quantum cat.
I like it here,
But it’s ok over there.
I’m can do,
I bide my time
In the soundless trees,
And before you know it
Like me,
You’re gone.”
Mouse Reply
“I’m in radar silence
To avoid the violence,”
Said the mouse, subliminally.
“There’s very little skittering
And certainly no whittering
At the roots of this soundless tree.
Talk of nothing and negation
Is anathema to Mouse Nation
As we eke out a living assiduously.
We’re Newtonian creatures
With Darwinian features
As you can so obviously see.
So forsake this bough
And your fancy know how,
Seek a rat
Or a sickly quantum cat,
But, for one night, let me be.”
(Owl picture captured on our bird feeder camera in our garden in Fort Worth, Texas)