A steady gaze meets mine, reflected in the cabin window.
No need for the guidebook or the binoculars around my neck; I can see you
perfectly.
The owl is my neighbor, yet through the summer we rarely met. Now
as darkness lengthens, our hunts overlap.
We scan the skies, flick over the ground, search for movement.
He hunts to eat. My prey flies off untouched.
Why do I hunt?
What draws me to find you?
Colored feathers. Piping voices. Watchful eyes.
Your eyes show colors I can but dream of.
History. Legend. Myth.
Good luck or bad, foretelling wisdom or death, you decorate our stories, give reality to our myths.
Names. Labels. Fact.
Child of dinosaurs, you traded scales for feathers, might for fight, yet you wear their talons unchanged.
Are these the reasons I search for you, hunt you down with eyes alone?
Or is it something deeper, unnamed, within
that draws me?
Which of us,
after all,
is prey?
