HONORING A BEAUTIFUL CREATURE

 Pussy said to the owl, “You elegant fowl, how charmingly sweet
 you sing. Oh let us be married, too long have we tarried.
 But what shall we do for a ring?” 

                                                    - Edward Lear 

 SOMETHING GREAT 

I remember being around the age of 8 when I encountered my first owl. There was a group of us, a class trip maybe, and we were in a backyard staring at a great horned owl in a cage. I’m not sure how the owl had gotten there, only that it was the most beautiful and powerful thing I had ever seen in real life. We were told not to look into its eyes so as not to challenge it, and I avoided its stare, but I surreptitiously stole a glance at its large face with those big, yellow eyes when it wasn’t looking at me. That was the day I chose my favorite animal.

 A PAINFUL SIGHT 

Recently, while spending some time at our daughter’s house, I saw the body of a barn owl on the side of the busy, two-lane road that we travel to and from town. To see the lifeless, butterscotch-colored body and wings, with its round, white face just lying there along the roadside weeds was such a painful sight for me that I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I thought that someone, besides me, would notice and give the poor thing a proper burial; but no. So after a few days, I asked my son-in-law to help me retrieve it and bury it in the field next to their house. We laid it to rest under a large eucalyptus tree, and I felt that the owl was finally at peace. Me too.

 THE ART 

Not long after we saw the owl’s body on the roadside, my daughter and I found a picture of a barn owl in a store; and being the wonderful person that she is, my daughter bought it for me for Mother’s Day. Such a gift, my daughter that is!!!

All of these beautiful barn owls are from Google Images. I hope you enjoy them.

Whether or not it was rational, burying the owl was something I felt needed to be done. The lines at the beginning of this post are from Edward Lear’s poem The Owl and the Pussycat which I memorized many years ago. I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and will join me here every Friday for another blog post and on Facebook and Instagram.

 Art in the Studio makes every day a good day. 

 Thanks for spending time with ArtEveryDayStudio!