Foreigners

Owls, like monks of a rare, feathered order,
haunt one aloof, lopped tower in this
unlikely city, cresting the broken stones
like ghosts at dusk, watchful, wary,
describing soft, slow curves in the failing sky.

Supremely odd and patiently oblivious
to all but wind and owlhood, they tatter
the evening air with their broad, sooty wings.
And over all, the tower seems content
with its alien colony. For whose is a city?

Yet below, the jabbering birds of the sprawled suburbs
complain from the lower roofs, look up from crusts
and blame owls for the dust, for all the dismal
workaday winging. The atmosphere is crowded,
to their native eyes, with a woeful weight of owls.

Natural enough, their twitterings. They were there
first, they cleared the air and made
nests in new places, scraped for straws, foraged
for food, grew ancestors and histories.
Now come the owls, a late, impervious entry.

What do the owls answer? To wit, nothing.
And sure enough, with time passing, the tower
becomes a landmark, mentioned in the guidebooks,
with owls as appropriate appendages. The city
absorbs them into its anonymous air.

Now, other birds alight on the battlements,
occasionally singing. Not worthwhile to war
over a lack of crumbs, in alien weather.
Who gives a hoot, say owls. The wind is common.
Let all poor birds be brothers under the feather.