This morning when I woke it was just light but the sun had not come above the trees. I looked out and there was an owl sitting on one of my garden posts. The owl was so still and obvious in its feathered presence and yet so immobile it was like an extension of the post. I looked away to find my camera and when I looked back it was gone and I wondered did I imagine it.
When I went out with the dog there was the owl perched on a broken tree branch as if staring at a mouse in the grass. I walked up the driveway and the moon was so tranquil and reflective above the single tree in the pasture. A flock of geese flew overhead. My pot that I had put out at the end of the driveway stood silent and weighty like a cross between the moon and the owl. My small view of the world was at rest--barely a hint of a breeze and the winter light clear, highlighting all the details of the landscape. On my walk back to the house I noticed where the squirrels have been eating walnuts and where a deer had been sleeping at night leaving a patch of pressed down grass.
It was as if the owl had given me the gift of vision. I remember a former student saying when she began making pots it was as if looking at clay from a maker's point of view she opened the door to a secret world with a whole new language she had never imagined.
You have given me a thing I could never have imagined, before I knew you. It's like I had the word "book," and you put one in my hands. I had the word "game," and you taught me how to play. I had the word "life," and then you came along and said, "Oh! You mean this."
― Richard Powers, The Overstory
― Richard Powers, The Overstory
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