Owls At Night Quotes

He would have told her - he would have said, it matters not if you are here or there, for I see you before me every moment. I see you in the light of the water, in the swaying of the young trees in the spring wind. I see you in the shadows of the great oaks, I hear your voice in the cry of the owl at night. You are the blood in my veins, and the beating of my heart. You are my first waking thought, and my last sigh before sleeping. You are - you are bone of my bone, and breath of my breath.

I never want to learn how to say goodbye

There is no such thing as loneliness. There is only the idea of loneliness.

This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.

I love the night passionately. I love it as I love my country, or my mistress, with an instinctive, deep, and unshakeable love. I love it with all my senses: I love to see it, I love to breathe it in, I love to open my ears to its silence, I love my whole body to be caressed by its blackness. Skylarks sing in the sunshine, the blue sky, the warm air, in the fresh morning light. The owl flies by night, a dark shadow passing through the darkness; he hoots his sinister, quivering hoot, as though he delights in the intoxicating black immensity of space.

I'll watch the night turn light blue, it's not the same without you cause it takes two to whisper quietly

She left me alone in the riddle. I needed her because I loved her — or I loved her because I needed her. Why had the feelings turned to a maze? Now I was lost in the dark.

But drenched in vanilla twilight I'll sit on the front porch all night Waist deep in thought because when I think of you I don't feel so alone

I've been sleeping with the night light unplugged With a note on the rocking chair It says I'm dreaming of the life I once loved So wake me if you're out there

Death’s a funny thing. I used to think it was a big, sudden thing, like a huge owl that would swoop down out of the night and carry you off. I don’t anymore. I think it’s a slow thing. Like a thief who comes to your house day after day, taking a little thing here and a little thing there, and one day you walk round your house and there’s nothing there to keep you, nothing to make you want to stay. And then you lie down and shut up forever. Lots of little deaths until the last big one.

This night is sparkling, don't you let it go I'm wonderstruck, blushing all the way home I'll spend forever wondering if you knew I was enchanted to meet you too.

They did not hear Grimble, as he lay dying, chant in the true voice of the Boreal Owl, in tones like chimes in the night, an ancient owl prayer, “I have redeemed myself by giving belief to the wings of the young. Blessed are those who believe, for indeed they shall fly."

The owl flies, in the moonlight, over a field where the wounded cry out. Like the owl, I fly in the night over my own misfortune.

The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wonders At out quaint spirits.

The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary. Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.

Nothing lasts forever, and nothing ever ends.

I felt a throb between my legs. I glared down at my Cock. Hold your fucking horses, I muttered. God...fuck was this seriously my life? Stalking a girl I'd met online, parked outside her house at midnight, speaking to my dick?

I'll watch the night turn light blue But it's not the same without you Because it takes two to whisper quietly

If this were a made-up story, it would begin at night, with a storm blowing and owls hooting and rattling noises under the bed.

Art is not an assembly of accidents. You have to master the rules before you break them.

Also, will you be communicating with me any time soon? I'm aware of my capacity to leave women speechless, but this is somewhat extreme.

Humans withdraw to their homes, and surrender the night to the creatures that own it: the crickets, the owls, the snakes. A world that hasn't changed for hundreds of thousands of years wakes up, and carries on as if the daylight and the humans and the changes to the landscape have all been an illusion.

This isn't LIKE Sky, This IS Sky. Nothing lasts forever, and nothing ever ends.

Once, very long ago, Time fell in love with Fate. This, as you might imagine, proved problematic. Their romance disrupted the flow of time. It tangled the strings of fortune into knots.  The stars watched from the heavens nervously, worrying what might occur. What might happen to the days and nights were time to suffer a broken heart? What catastrophes might result if the same fate awaited Fate itself? The stars conspired and separated the two. For a while they breathed easier in the heavens. Time continued to flow as it always had, or perhaps imperceptibly slower. Fate weaved together the paths that were meant to intertwine, though perhaps a string was missed here and there. But eventually, Fate and Time found each other again.  In the heavens, the stars sighed, twinkling and fretting. They asked the Moon her advice. The Moon in turn called upon the parliament of owls to decide how best to proceed. The parliament of owls convened to discuss the matter amongst themselves night after night. They argued and debated while the world slept around them, and the world continued to turn, unaware that such important matters were under discussion while it slumbered.  The parliament of owls came to the logical conclusion that if the problem was in the combination, one of the elements should be removed. They chose to keep the one they felt more important. The parliament of owls told their decision to the stars and the stars agreed. The Moon did not, but on this night she was dark and could not offer her opinion.  So it was decided, and Fate was pulled apart. Ripped into pieces by beaks and claws. Fate’s screams echoed through the deepest corners and the highest heavens but no one dared to intervene save for a small brave mouse who snuck into the fray, creeping unnoticed through the blood and bone and feathers, and took Fate’s heart and kept it safe. When the furor died down there was nothing else left of Fate.  The owl who consumed Fate’s eyes gained great site, greater site then any that had been granted to a mortal creature before. The Parliament crowned him the Owl King. In the heavens the stars sparkled with relief but the moon was full of sorrow. And so time goes as it should and events that were once fated to happen are left instead to chance, and Chance never falls in love with anything for long. But the world is strange and endings are not truly endings no matter how the stars might wish it so.  Occasionally Fate can pull itself together again.  And Time is always waiting.

You are always deceiving me, Always, Matt, always speaking to me from any mouth but your own. Don't you know that I love you? I see under all your lies, and I always find you.

When the owl sings, the night is silent. (Quand le hibou chante, La nuit est silence)

Every morning I tell myself, "I'll sleep early tonight." And every night I say, "One more chapter.

Now go to bed, you crazy night owl! You have to be at NASA early in the morning. So they can look for your penis with the Hubble telescope.

A city sparkles in the night How can it glow so bright? The neighborhoods surround the soft florescent light Designer skyline in my head Abstract and still well-read You went from numbered lines to buildings overhead

The only thing he hates more than writing is not writing.

Always, Matt, always speaking to me from any mouth but your own. Don't you know that I love you? I see you under all your lies, and I always find you.

When the cold comes to New England it arrives in sheets of sleet and ice. In December, the wind wraps itself around bare trees and twists in between husbands and wives asleep in their beds. It shakes the shingles from the roofs and sifts through cracks in the plaster. The only green things left are the holly bushes and the old boxwood hedges in the village, and these are often painted white with snow. Chipmunks and weasels come to nest in basements and barns; owls find their way into attics. At night,the dark is blue and bluer still, as sapphire of night.

Sad things seem truest to me.

Why did every small separation still seem to echo a future goodbye?

God is an early bird; satan is a night owl. Everyone knows that.

Night.Owl: So what are you wearing? Little.Bird: Lol! All the walls are coming down tonight... Night.Owl: Haha. God, sorry. I have no idea why I just typed that. Ignore that. Such a creeper right now.

Other sound than the owl's voice there was none, save the falling of a fountain into its stone basin; for, it was one of those dark nights that hold their breath by the hour together, and then heave a long low sigh, and hold their breath again.

I am an owl, bird of the night. I see everything. I know everything.

There is a romance about all those who are abroad in the black hours.

The moon seems unaware of night's dark hitting on the damp warm rain misguiding owl's spitting A thunder light of love raising hearts beating while weather learns more from rain lovers meeting

THE OWLS by: Charles Baudelaire UNDER the overhanging yews, The dark owls sit in solemn state, Like stranger gods; by twos and twos Their red eyes gleam. They meditate. Motionless thus they sit and dream Until that melancholy hour When, with the sun's last fading gleam, The nightly shades assume their power. From their still attitude the wise Will learn with terror to despise All tumult, movement, and unrest; For he who follows every shade, Carries the memory in his breast, Of each unhappy journey made. 'The Owls' is reprinted from The Poems and Prose Poems of Charles Baudelaire. Ed. James Huneker. New York: Brentano's, 1919.

Whatever Matt's problem was, I wanted to wrap my arms around him and snarl at the world until everything left him alone. Everything but me.

This was the night bus, not a Journey song. Two strangers were not on a midnight train going anywhere. I was going home, and he was probably going to knock over a liquor store.

The sun's down and the moon's pretty - it's time to ramble.

We stand dead still and we listen to the night. The city drones. An owl hoots and a cat howls and a dog barks and a siren wails. We let the stars shine into us.

Note to self: wear thong, render Matt speechless.

To an eagle or to an owl or to a rabbit, man must seem a masterful and yet a forlorn animal; he has but two friends. In his almost universal unpopularity he points out, with pride, that these two are the dog and the horse. He believes, with an innocence peculiar to himself, that they are equally proud of this alleged confraternity. He says, 'Look at my two noble friends -- they are dumb, but they are loyal.' I have for years suspected that they are only tolerant.

Those who drink whiskey with the owls at night, cannot soar with the eagles the next day.

Night is done, gone the moon, gone the stars From the skies. Fades the black of night Comes the morn with rosy light. Fold your wings, go to sleep, Rest your gizzards, Safe you'll be for the day. Glaux is nigh. Far away is first black, But it shall seep back Over field Over flower In the twilight hour. We are home in our tree. We are owls, we are free. As we go, this we know Glaux is nigh.

Things I want to do with Hannah: dance, watch a movie, camp, swim, hike, bike, take a trip, build something, have a food fight, write more, do Christmas-

And when the leaves return, and their whisperings fill the night, they'll freeze and burn, where fire and ice collide

I thought listening to hip-hop would help distract me from the scumbagginess of my task, but after "99 problems" and "Heartless" I flung my iPod away.

Do not trap yourself into an owl's hooting sound where sad nights linger through the blackness of a hound

I don't know how these couples do it, spend hours each night tucking their kids in, reading them books about misguided kittens or seals who wear uniforms, and then reread them if the child so orders. In my house, our parents put us to bed with two simple words: "Shut up." That was always the last thing we heard before our lights were turned off. Our artwork did not hang on the refrigerator or anywhere near it, because our parents recognized it for what it was: crap. They did not live in a child's house, we lived in theirs.

It drains the bars and cafes after hours, concentrates the wicked and the guilty along its chipped Formica counter, and thrums with the gossip of criminals, policemen, shtarkers,and schlemiels, whores and night owls ... three or four floaters, solitaries, and drunks between benders lean against the sparkly resin counter, sucking the tea from their shtekelehs and working the calulations of their next big mistake.

Owls visited them at night. Some thought the owls were witches. Some thought they were angels of death. Some thought they were holy and brought blessings. Some thought they were the restless spirits of the dead. The cowboys thought they were owls.

Matt… I don’t want a perfect gentleman.” “What do you want?” “You.

The rat scuttles, the big cat creeps, the monkey dashes, The bat glides, the white crane soars, the lizard darts, And the owl hoots In the middle of the night.

In freedom you form in utter disgrace, the bars of my prison this night. While you drift on currents of seraphim heights, it is I who deserve to take flight.

People say the darkness is where secrets are best hidden. Night time brings clarity and focus to owls, even if the aperture of this vision comes with a stigma.

On fine nights when the cold and the drumtaps, and the hooting of the owls, and the moonlight, have got into their wild, woodland blood and made it even wilder, they will dance till daybreak.

Daughters of the Moon, children of the Night, rise like dew together until the morning's light. The owl's cry is our anthem, our altar is the sky. The Great Mystery is our Mother to whom now, sisters, fly.

Owl Poem One has to say this for the rounds of life that keep coming and going; it has worked so far. The rabbit, after all, has never asked if the grass wanted to live. Any more than the owl consults with the rabbit. Acceptance of the world requires that I bow even to you, Master of the night.

The parliament of owls told their decision to the stars and the stars agreed. The moon did not, but on this night she was dark and could not offer her opinion

My toes are going to come," -Mariann The Night Owl

In their previous lives, poets were bats, and thinkers were owls.

The moon was full, shining enough light down for Scarlet to make out the hundreds of gravestones lined up in the wet grass and the dozens of standing tombs that rose up in various places throughout the yard. Giant trees swayed in the winter wind, throwing shadows across the grounds and making it look like the darkness was alive. Graveyards were much more frightening at night than they were during the day. An owl hooted. A wolf howled. A bat flapped across the night sky before her, wings silhouetted by the giant moon. Are you kidding me? It was like the graveyard knew Scarlet had entered and wanted to make it the creepiest experience ever.

To be alone—the eternal refrain of life. It wasn’t better or worse than anything else. One talked too much about it. One was always and never alone. A violin, suddenly—somewhere out of a twilight—in a garden on the hills around Budapest. The heavy scent of chestnuts. The wind. And dreams crouched on one’s shoulders like young owls, their eyes becoming lighter in the dusk. A night that never became night. The hour when all women were beautiful.

No pictures,” I told Hannah on Skype. “No specifics, no last name, no phone number. Nothing. I don’t want to know you, and I don’t want you to know me.

There are cries in the dark at night As owls answer the moon

I'm not an insomniac. It's just that my mind is in the best position to catch the weight of all hovering possibilities the moment I lie down.

That little owl with a call as steady as my heartbeat was telling anyone who would listen, ‘I am here.’ We were listening. We’re listening still.

Sex is the damndest thing.

Again and again we went there together – tumbling over the raw edge, touching the live wire, collapsing, exploding, dissolving like dead stars.

I never want to learn how to say goodbye.

Gormenghast, that is, the main massing of the original stone, taken by itself would have displayed a certain ponderous architectural quality were it possible to have ignored the circumfusion of those mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its outer walls. They sprawled over the sloping arch, each one half way over its neighbour until, held back by the castle ramparts, the innermost of these hovels laid hold on the great walls, clamping themselves thereto like limpets to a rock. These dwellings, by ancient law, were granted this chill intimacy with the stronghold that loomed above them. Over their irregular roofs would fall throughout the seasons, the shadows of time-eaten buttresses, of broken and lofty turrets, and, most enormous of all, the shadow of the Tower of Flints. This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.

Perfect. This place was perfect. I stepped into the chick pen. “Hey guys.” I crouched and reached for the chicks. They swarmed away from me, making me laugh. “You little jerks. You’re all fat. You’re all going to be ugly in about a month, all scrawny and gray. Come here.

It was the end of August — the time when owls hoot at night and flurries of bats swoop noiselessly over the garden. Moomin Wood was full of glow-worms, and the sea was disturbed. There was expectation and a certain sadness in the air, and the harvest moon came up huge and yellow. Moomintroll had always liked those last weeks of summer most, but he didn’t really know why.

Beyond the wall of the unreal city … there is another world waiting for you. It is the old true world of the deserts, the mountains, the forests, the islands, the shores, the open plains. Go there. Be there. Walk gently and quietly deep within it. And then — May your trails be dim, lonesome, stony, narrow, winding and only slightly uphill. May the wind bring rain for the slickrock potholes fourteen miles on the other side of yonder blue ridge. May God's dog serenade your campfire, may the rattlesnake and the screech owl amuse your reverie, may the Great Sun dazzle your eyes by day and the Great Bear watch over you by night.

TO HIS HEART, BIIDING IT HAVE NO FEAR Be you still, be you still, trembling heart; Remember the wisdom out of the old days: Him who trembles before the flame and the flood, And the winds that blow through the starry ways, Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood Cover over and hide, for he has no part With the lonely, majestical multitude. THE CAP AND THE BELLS The jester walked in the garden: The garden had fallen still; He bade his soul rise upward And stand on her window-sill. It rose in a straight blue garment, When owls began to call: It had grown wise-tongued by thinking Of a quiet and light footfall; But the young queen would not listen; She rose in her pale night-gown; She drew in the heavy casement And pushed the latches down. He bade his heart go to her, When the owls called out no more; In a red and quivering garment It sang to her through the door. It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming Of a flutter of flower-like hair; But she took up her fan from the table And waved it off on the air. 'I have cap and bells,' he pondered, 'I will send them to her and die'; And when the morning whitened He left them where she went by. She laid them upon her bosom, Under a cloud of her hair, And her red lips sang them a love-song Till stars grew out of the air. She opened her door and her window, And the heart and the soul came through, To her right hand came the red one, To her left hand came the blue. They set up a noise like crickets, A chattering wise and sweet, And her hair was a folded flower And the quiet of love in her feet.

When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-whit! To-who!—a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all aloud the wind doe blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-whit! To-who!—a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

A beam or pillar can be used to batter down a city wall, but it is no good for stopping up a little hole - this refers to a difference in function. Thoroughbreds like Qiji and Hualiu could gallop a thousand li in one day, but when it came to catching rats they were no match for the wildcat or the weasel - this refers to a difference in skill. The horned owl catches fleas at night and can spot the tip of a hair, but when daylight comes, no matter how wide it opens its eyes, it cannot see a mound or a hill - this refers to a difference in nature. Now do you say, that you are going to make Right your master and do away with Wrong, or make Order your master and do away with Disorder? If you do, then you have not understood the principle of heaven and earth or the nature of the ten thousand things. This is like saying that you are going to make Heaven your master and do away with Earth, or make Yin your master and do away with Yang. Obviously it is impossible.

Will you do me a favor Matt?” “Anything.” “This is easy. Just repeat after me. ‘It was nice talking to you Hanna. I’ll see you tomorrow. Goodnight.’ ” I gave her an incredulous look. :Don’t give me that look. I’m trying to teach you this mysterious skill, one that you seem to lack. It’s called how to say goodbye.” I smiled and rubbed the back of my neck. “What are you grinning at?” she said. “I never want to,” I said. “What? Never want to what?” “I never want to learn how to say goodbye.” I closed Skype and then closed my eyes, laughing into the silence of my apartment.

Our eyes met and I forgot the audience staring at me. His lips parted slightly, eyes widened fractionally. I wanted to run to him. Was it the surrounding darkness or the chill in the air, or maybe the presence of others? Something … Something clicked, and I understood that no one wanted me the way he wanted me. To have and to hold, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, until death. So I went to him. That is the story: I went to him.

Miracles and happiness are a lot like each other in many ways. It is difficult to predict what will trigger a miracle. Some people go their entire lives full of persistent darkness and never feel the need to seek out a miracle. Others find they can exist with darkness only for a single night before they go hunting for a miracle to remove it. Some need only one miracle; others might have two or three or four or five over the course of their lives. Happiness is the same way. One can never tell what will make one person happy and leave another untouched. Often even the person involved will be surprised by what makes them happy. And it turns out that owls find both miracles and happiness irresistible.

Now the day is done, Now the shepherd sun Drives his white flocks from the sky; Now the flowers rest On their mother's breast, Hushed by her low lullaby. Now the glowworms glance, Now the fireflies dance, Under fern-boughs green and high; And the western breeze To the forest trees Chants a tuneful lullaby. Now 'mid shadows deep Falls blessed sleep, Like dew from the summer sky; And the whole earth dreams, In the moon's soft beams, While night breathes a lullaby. Now, birdlings, rest, In your wind-rocked nest, Unscared by the owl's shrill cry; For with folded wings Little Brier swings, And singeth your lullaby.

An adult’s owlness or larkness, also known as their chronotype, is strongly determined by genetics. If you are a night owl, it’s likely that one (or both) of your parents is a night owl. Sadly, society treats night owls rather unfairly on two counts. First is the label of being lazy, based on a night owl’s wont to wake up later in the day, due to the fact that they did not fall asleep until the early-morning hours. Others (usually morning larks) will chastise night owls on the erroneous assumption that such preferences are a choice, and if they were not so slovenly, they could easily wake up early. However, night owls are not owls by choice. They are bound to a delayed schedule by unavoidable DNA hardwiring. It is not their conscious fault, but rather their genetic fate.

I was growing inward incessantly; like an animal that hibernates during the wintertime, I could hear other peoples' voices with my ears; my own voice, however, I could hear only in my throat. The loneliness and the solitude that lurked behind me were like a condensed, thick, eternal night, like one of those nights with a dense, persistent, sticky darkness which waits to pounce on unpopulated cities filled with lustful and vengeful dreams. My whole being could now be summed up in my voice―an insane, absolute record. The force that, out of loneliness, brings two individuals together to procreate has its roots in this same insanity which exists in everyone and which is mingled with a sense of regret, tending gradually toward death...Only death does not tell lies! The presence of death annihilates all that is imaginary. We are the offspring of death and death delivers us from the tantalizing, fraudulent attractions of life; it is death that beckons us from the depths of life.

The sea was smooth, warm and as dark as black velvet, not a ripple disturbing the surface. The distant coastline of Albania was dimly outlined by a faint reddish glow in the sky. Gradually, minute by minute, this faint glow deepened and grew brighter, spreading across the sky. Then suddenly the moon, enormous, wine-red, edged herself over the fretted battlement of mountains, and threw a straight blood-red path across the dark sea. The owls appeared now, drifting from tree to tree as silently as flakes of soot, hooting in astonishment as the moon rose higher and higher, turning to pink, then gold, and finally riding in a nest of stars, like a silver bubble.

To Juan at the Winter Solstice There is one story and one story only That will prove worth your telling, Whether as learned bard or gifted child; To it all lines or lesser gauds belong That startle with their shining Such common stories as they stray into. Is it of trees you tell, their months and virtues, Or strange beasts that beset you, Of birds that croak at you the Triple will? Or of the Zodiac and how slow it turns Below the Boreal Crown, Prison to all true kings that ever reigned? Water to water, ark again to ark, From woman back to woman: So each new victim treads unfalteringly The never altered circuit of his fate, Bringing twelve peers as witness Both to his starry rise and starry fall. Or is it of the Virgin's silver beauty, All fish below the thighs? She in her left hand bears a leafy quince; When, with her right hand she crooks a finger, smiling, How many the King hold back? Royally then he barters life for love. Or of the undying snake from chaos hatched, Whose coils contain the ocean, Into whose chops with naked sword he springs, Then in black water, tangled by the reeds, Battles three days and nights, To be spewed up beside her scalloped shore? Much snow if falling, winds roar hollowly, The owl hoots from the elder, Fear in your heart cries to the loving-cup: Sorrow to sorrow as the sparks fly upward. The log groans and confesses: There is one story and one story only. Dwell on her graciousness, dwell on her smiling, Do not forget what flowers The great boar trampled down in ivy time. Her brow was creamy as the crested wave, Her sea-blue eyes were wild But nothing promised that is not performed.

shapeshifter poems by Lucille Clifton 1 the legend is whispered in the women's tent how the moon when she rises full follows some men into themselves and changes them there the season is short but dreadful shapeshifters they wear strange hands they walk through the houses at night their daughters do not know them 2 who is there to protect her from the hands of the father not the windows which see and say nothing not the moon that awful eye not the woman she will become with her scarred tongue who who who the owl laments into the evening who will protect her this prettylittlegirl 3 if the little girl lies still enough shut enough hard enough shapeshifter may not walk tonight the full moon may not find him here the hair on him bristling rising up 4 the poem at the end of the world is the poem the little girl breathes into her pillow the one she cannot tell the one there is no one to hear this poem is a political poem is a war poem is a universal poem but is not about these things this poem is about one human heart this poem is the poem at the end of the world Credit: Copyright © 1987 by Lucille Clifton.

A Wild Woman Is Not A Girlfriend. She Is A Relationship With Nature. But can you love me in the deep? In the dark? In the thick of it? Can you love me when I drink from the wrong bottle and slip through the crack in the floorboard? Can you love me when I’m bigger than you, when my presence blazes like the sun does, when it hurts to look directly at me? Can you love me then too? Can you love me under the starry sky, shaved and smooth, my skin like liquid moonlight? Can you love me when I am howling and furry, standing on my haunches, my lower lip stained with the blood of my last kill? When I call down the lightning, when the sidewalks are singed by the soles of my feet, can you still love me then? What happens when I freeze the land, and cause the dirt to harden over all the pomegranate seeds we’ve planted? Will you trust that Spring will return? Will you still believe me when I tell you I will become a raging river, and spill myself upon your dreams and call them to the surface of your life? Can you trust me, even though you cannot tame me? Can you love me, even though I am all that you fear and admire? Will you fear my shifting shape? Does it frighten you, when my eyes flash like your camera does? Do you fear they will capture your soul? Are you afraid to step into me? The meat-eating plants and flowers armed with poisonous darts are not in my jungle to stop you from coming. Not you. So do not worry. They belong to me, and I have invited you here. Stay to the path revealed in the moonlight and arrive safely to the hut of Baba Yaga: the wild old wise one… she will not lead you astray if you are pure of heart. You cannot be with the wild one if you fear the rumbling of the ground, the roar of a cascading river, the startling clap of thunder in the sky. If you want to be safe, go back to your tiny room — the night sky is not for you. If you want to be torn apart, come in. Be broken open and devoured. Be set ablaze in my fire. I will not leave you as you have come: well dressed, in finely-threaded sweaters that keep out the cold. I will leave you naked and biting. Leave you clawing at the sheets. Leave you surrounded by owls and hawks and flowers that only bloom when no one is watching. So, come to me, and be healed in the unbearable lightness and darkness of all that you are. There is nothing in you that can scare me. Nothing in you I will not use to make you great. A wild woman is not a girlfriend. She is a relationship with nature. She is the source of all your primal desires, and she is the wild whipping wind that uproots the poisonous corn stalks on your neatly tilled farm. She will plant pear trees in the wake of your disaster. She will see to it that you shall rise again. She is the lover who restores you to your own wild nature.

The hearth is desolate. The children, the unconscious children, who once sang and danced in her presence, are gone. She gropes her way, in the darkness of age, for a drink of water. Instead of the voices of her children, she hears by day the moans of the dove, and by night the screams of the hideous owl. All is gloom. The grave is at the door. And now, when weighed down by the pains and aches of old age, when the head inclines to the feet, when the beginning and ending of human existence meet, and helpless infancy and painful old age combine together—at this time, this most needful time, the time for the exercise of that tenderness and affection which children only can exercise towards a declining parent—my poor old grandmother, the devoted mother of twelve children, is left all alone, in yonder little hut, before a few dim embers. She stands—she sits—she staggers—she falls—she groans—she dies—and there are none of her children or grandchildren present, to wipe from her wrinkled brow the cold sweat of death, or to place beneath the sod her fallen remains. Will not a righteous God visit for these things?

When you enter the woods of a fairy tale and it is night, the trees tower on either side of the path. They loom large because everything in the world of fairy tales is blown out of proportion. If the owl shouts, the otherwise deathly silence magnifies its call. The tasks you are given to do (by the witch, by the stepmother, by the wise old woman) are insurmountable - pull a single hair from the crescent moon bear's throat; separate a bowl's worth of poppy seeds from a pile of dirt. The forest seems endless. But when you do reach the daylight, triumphantly carrying the particular hair or having outwitted the wolf; when the owl is once again a shy bird and the trees only a lush canopy filtering the sun, the world is forever changed for your having seen it otherwise. From now on, when you come upon darkness, you'll know it has dimension. You'll know how closely poppy seeds and dirt resemble each other. The forest will be just another story that has absorbed you, taken you through its paces, and cast you out again to your home with its rattling windows and empty refrigerator - to your meager livelihood, which demands, inevitably, that you write about it.

These were the distractions I had to choose from. There were no other lights burning downtown after nine o'clock. On starlight nights I used to pace up and down those long, cold streets, scowling at the little, sleeping houses on either side, with their storm-windows and covered back porches. They were flimsy shelters, most of them poorly built of light wood, with spindle porch-posts horribly mutilated by the turning-lathe. Yet for all their frailness, how much jealousy and envy and unhappiness some of them managed to contain! The life that went on in them seemed to me made up of evasions and negations; shifts to save cooking, to save washing and cleaning, devices to propitiate the tongue of gossip. This guarded mode of existence was like living under a tyranny. People's speech, their voices, their very glances, became furtive and repressed. Every individual taste, every natural appetite, was bridled by caution. The people asleep in those houses, I thought, tried to live like the mice in their own kitchens; to make no noise, to leave no trace, to slip over the surface of things in the dark. The growing piles of ashes and cinders in the back yards were the only evidence that the wasteful, consuming process of life went on at all. On Tuesday nights the Owl Club danced; then there was a little stir in the streets, and here and there one could see a lighted window until midnight. But the next night all was dark again.

The Jumblies I They went to sea in a Sieve, they did, In a Sieve they went to sea: In spite of all their friends could say, On a winter's morn, on a stormy day, In a Sieve they went to sea! And when the Sieve turned round and round, And every one cried, 'You'll all be drowned!' They called aloud, 'Our Sieve ain't big, But we don't care a button! we don't care a fig! In a Sieve we'll go to sea!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. II They sailed away in a Sieve, they did, In a Sieve they sailed so fast, With only a beautiful pea-green veil Tied with a riband by way of a sail, To a small tobacco-pipe mast; And every one said, who saw them go, 'O won't they be soon upset, you know! For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long, And happen what may, it's extremely wrong In a Sieve to sail so fast!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. III The water it soon came in, it did, The water it soon came in; So to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet In a pinky paper all folded neat, And they fastened it down with a pin. And they passed the night in a crockery-jar, And each of them said, 'How wise we are! Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long, Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong, While round in our Sieve we spin!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. IV And all night long they sailed away; And when the sun went down, They whistled and warbled a moony song To the echoing sound of a coppery gong, In the shade of the mountains brown. 'O Timballo! How happy we are, When we live in a Sieve and a crockery-jar, And all night long in the moonlight pale, We sail away with a pea-green sail, In the shade of the mountains brown!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. V They sailed to the Western Sea, they did, To a land all covered with trees, And they bought an Owl, and a useful Cart, And a pound of Rice, and a Cranberry Tart, And a hive of silvery Bees. And they bought a Pig, and some green Jack-daws, And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws, And forty bottles of Ring-Bo-Ree, And no end of Stilton Cheese. Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve. VI And in twenty years they all came back, In twenty years or more, And every one said, 'How tall they've grown! For they've been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone, And the hills of the Chankly Bore!' And they drank their health, and gave them a feast Of dumplings made of beautiful yeast; And every one said, 'If we only live, We too will go to sea in a Sieve,--- To the hills of the Chankly Bore!' Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.

He called me Jess because that is the name of the hood which restrains the falcon. I was his falcon. I hung on his arm and fed at his hand. He said my nose was sharp and cruel and that my eyes had madness in them. He said I would tear him to pieces if he dealt softly with me. At night, if he was away, he had me chained to our bed. It was a long chain, long enough for me to use the chamber pot or to stand at the window and wait for the late owls. I love to hear the owls. I love to see the sudden glide of wings spread out for prey, and then the dip and the noise like a lover in pain. He used the chain when we went riding together. I had a horse as strong as his, and he’d whip the horse from behind and send it charging through the trees, and he’d follow, half a head behind, pulling on the chain and asking me how I liked my ride. His game was to have me sit astride him when we made love and hold me tight in the small of my back. He said he had to have me above him, in case I picked his eyes out in the faltering candlelight. I was none of these things, but I became them. At night, in June I think, I flew off his wrist and tore his liver from his body, and bit my chain in pieces and left him on the bed with his eyes open. He looked surprised, I don’t know why. As your lover describes you, so you are.

I wanted to throw up. But I would have had to get out of bed to run to the bathroom. And I felt like I never wanted to leave that bed again. I love animals. I've been raised all my life around them. I love nature. But what did I really know about it? I have been more animals than many people ever see in a lifetime. I have flown with the wings of an osprey. I've raced through the ocean in the body of a dolphin. I've seen the world through the eyes of an owl at night, and smelled the wind with all the keen senses of a wolf. I've flown upside down and backward in the body of a fly. Sometimes I go out into the far fields at night and become a horse and run through the grass. And everything I've been, every animal, is either killer or killed. In a million, million battles all around the world, on every continent, in every square inch of space, there was killing. From the great cats in Africa that cold-bloodedly search out the young and weak gazelles, to the terrible wars that are fought out in anthills and termite colonies. All of nature was at war. And, at the top of all that destruction, humans killed each other as well as other species, and now those same people have been enslaved and destroyed by the Yeerks. Nature at its finest. Cute, cuddly animals who slaughtered to live. The color of nature wasn't green. It was red. Blood-red.

The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clotted shoulder, The wing trails like a banner in defeat, No more to use the sky forever but live with famine And pain a few days: cat nor coyote Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons. He stands under the oak-bush and waits The lame feet of salvation; at night he remembers freedom And flies in a dream, the dawns ruin it. He is strong and pain is worse to the strong, incapacity is worse. The curs of the day come and torment him At distance, no one but death the redeemer will humble that head, The intrepid readiness, the terrible eyes. The wild God of the world is sometimes merciful to those That ask mercy, not often to the arrogant. You do not know him, you communal people, or you have forgotten him; Intemperate and savage, the hawk remembers him; Beautiful and wild, the hawks, and men that are dying, remember him. II I'd sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk; but the great redtail Had nothing left but unable misery From the bone too shattered for mending, the wing that trailed under his talons when he moved. We had fed him six weeks, I gave him freedom, He wandered over the foreland hill and returned in the evening, asking for death, Not like a beggar, still eyed with the old Implacable arrogance. I gave him the lead gift in the twilight. What fell was relaxed, Owl-downy, soft feminine feathers; but what Soared: the fierce rush: the night-herons by the flooded river cried fear at its rising Before it was quite unsheathed from reality

At childhood’s end, the houses petered out into playing fields, the factory, allotments kept, like mistresses, by kneeling married men, the silent railway line, the hermit’s caravan, till you came at last to the edge of the woods. It was there that I first clapped eyes on the wolf. He stood in a clearing, reading his verse out loud in his wolfy drawl, a paperback in his hairy paw, red wine staining his bearded jaw. What big ears he had! What big eyes he had! What teeth! In the interval, I made quite sure he spotted me, sweet sixteen, never been, babe, waif, and bought me a drink, my first. You might ask why. Here’s why. Poetry. The wolf, I knew, would lead me deep into the woods, away from home, to a dark tangled thorny place lit by the eyes of owls. I crawled in his wake, my stockings ripped to shreds, scraps of red from my blazer snagged on twig and branch, murder clues. I lost both shoes but got there, wolf’s lair, better beware. Lesson one that night, breath of the wolf in my ear, was the love poem. I clung till dawn to his thrashing fur, for what little girl doesn’t dearly love a wolf? Then I slid from between his heavy matted paws and went in search of a living bird – white dove – which flew, straight, from my hands to his hope mouth. One bite, dead. How nice, breakfast in bed, he said, licking his chops. As soon as he slept, I crept to the back of the lair, where a whole wall was crimson, gold, aglow with books. Words, words were truly alive on the tongue, in the head, warm, beating, frantic, winged; music and blood. But then I was young – and it took ten years in the woods to tell that a mushroom stoppers the mouth of a buried corpse, that birds are the uttered thought of trees, that a greying wolf howls the same old song at the moon, year in, year out, season after season, same rhyme, same reason. I took an axe to a willow to see how it wept. I took an axe to a salmon to see how it leapt. I took an axe to the wolf as he slept, one chop, scrotum to throat, and saw the glistening, virgin white of my grandmother’s bones. I filled his old belly with stones. I stitched him up. Out of the forest I come with my flowers, singing, all alone. Little Red-Cap