I’ll stand with the owls.
Every evening they call darkness
as sure as cloudy skies
closer than stars.

They know what they’re doing.
I envy their constancy,
their sheer belief
in the way things ought to be.

Sometimes their calls
are soft, subtle.
Sometimes they are not
but always abrupt

they bring me back
to sanity, to routine
to the goodness
God built into them.

The owls, the trees,
the darkness – this
is what matters.
This is where truth begins.