Wisdon's Bone (Poetry)

“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred
with their bones...” Julius Caesar Act 3, scene 2

I am the owl who perches pale
half-hidden in a senile hump of yew
and hungry for stray ghosts who creep
like anxious long-legged mice among
crumbled and neglected graveyard stones.

A crescent moon lolls easy at my back
and watches this entire nocturnal play
she lights so subtly the midnight chill undrama
                                of it all —
the lack of any action and no outward clue
to narrative — the far-off soundtrack sighs for me alone.

This is the long and patient hunt
for tender souls — I crave their well-aged taste —
each melting spirit salts my tongue
with mysteries — old skin peeled like the wafer-past
to leave a tempting hint of what’s to come...

A shadow moves and lures me from this branch
to scythe the air — my swoop a feathered cut
that barely stirs those grainy greys stacked up
veiling tombs — concealing those who shift to left or right
cautious in a landscape tilted dumb.

My vision has them caught before a claw
snags the edge of reason — curls its white
picks solemn through thin vestiges — mere scraps
that feed imagination then dissolve
where wasted meat still clings to wisdom’s bone.