Gwen+Harwood+-+Father+and+Child+-+Barn+Owl

=Father and Child=

//Barn Owl//
Daybreak: the household slept. I rose, blessed by the sun. A horny fiend, I crept out with my father's gun. Let him dream of a child obedient, angel-mind-

old no-sayer, robbed of power by sleep. I knew my prize who swooped home at this hour with day-light riddled eyes to his place on a high beam in our old stables, to dream

light's useless time away. I stood, holding my breath, in urine-scented hay, master of life and death, a wisp-haired judge whose law would punish beak and claw.

My first shot struck. He swayed, ruined, beating his only wing, as I watched, afraid by the fallen gun, a lonely child who believed death clean and final, not this obscene

bundle of stuff that dropped, and dribbled through the loose straw tangling in bowels, and hopped blindly closer. I saw those eyes that did not see mirror my cruelty

while the wrecked thing that could not bear the light nor hide hobbled in its own blood. My father reached my side, gave me the fallen gun. 'End what you have begun.'

I fired. The blank eyes shone once into mine, and slept. I leaned my head upon my father's arm, and wept, owl blind in early sun for what I had begun.