Sounds of Snow Falling

(Snowy Owl)

Above a frozen plain
a moonlit phantom hovers
wings of white
against dark sky.

Impossibly, it listens for muffled sounds
of tiny voles neath snowy drifts.
The voles, too, must search.
Their repasts shrinking until spring’s return.

Both owl and vole seek only another day,
a meal, a mate,
a warm place to watch and wait
as snow falls and gathers.

They’re not so different
these feathered and furred beings
but set at odds they are
by time and place and nature.

Snow falls and falls
by night and by day
The owl flies on
listening to snow falling.