They are back after years at dusk
calling from the high trees around the house,
into the night, children of the wise one,
by the moon hunting the woods.
Shadows on shade heard, not seen,
flying that borderline where thought meets vision.
Once on a country road
one more white than brown in our headlights
led us three hundred yards then, landing,
sat on the tarmac, till we neared, then flew
again, settled, and flew, three times, as if
to say “This is what magic is.” And I, before I lost
this or that tooth, could call “skreek!”
and they would answer, closer
and closer, invisible in the night garden.
Now they are back, they or their children,
before we leave, and if I could still
I would ask them this:
Make our children welcome to this house,
your children their children, make them glad,
and we will sit, by fainter moonlight, in
that other garden, touching hands, hearing
from the disused castle battlements something,
or perhaps nothing, and ask each other, smiling:
“Listen! Remember the owls?”