© 2008 music and lyrics by Shannon Rose Riley

I dreamt an owl last night
I couldn’t believe
How big I made it
First, a statue
Dark and large
Then, alive
Wings ranging wide
Hook and claw
White nose and eye.
I was in the book
Dept.
At l.l. bean
Looking for books
And I turned around and
Let out a little ‘oh’
When I turned and
Saw
The owl:
On a book called
Ghost of the woods
Or
Ghost of the Forest
A book on the gray
Owl…
And…
Which…
It
Reminded me:
I dreamt an owl
Last night.

I dreamt an owl last night
Rendered it in gold
I was told
In not some far off distant lite
(they might have said ‘life’)
to wait
to hear
what I am told
(they might have said ‘what I’ll be told’)
…. “next?”
They said.

I dreamt
An owl
Last nite
Thin oval face
With a white slash down his nose—
But it might have been a girl!
It was so still
So so still
And I was
Talking to this guy
-out on a patio-
sort-of
and an owl
almost a statue
3 feet high
not fat.
Tall
Big breast
Still as a statue at first glance.
--I say a word or
maybe my friend
says a word
I turn around
I see the stone balcony
Stone floor
Half a stone wall
Forests and hills beyond
On the stones
On the balcony
Within a stone ½ wall:
I turn.
He (or she): the owl
Is flap-flap-flap-flapping
And pointing
flap-flap-flap-flapping
And pointing
And having a silent, or
Maybe not silent, fit.
And I had
Forgotten what a
Beautiful thing I had made
Till I saw
The book
At l.l. Bean’s.