Owl Song by Margaret Atwood
This one was suggested by a reader. I need to get another book or two of Atwood’s, since my file has been depleted. So many poems, so little time!
Owl Song
By Margaret Atwood
I am the heart of a murdered woman
who took the wrong way home
who was strangled in a vacant lot and not buried
who was shot with care beneath a tree
who was mutilated by a crisp knife.
There are many of us.
I grew feathers and tore my way out of her;
I am shaped like a feathered heart.
My mouth is a chisel, my hands
the crimes done by hands.
I sit in the forest talking of death
which is monotonous:
though there are many ways of dying
there is only one death song,
the colour of mist:
it says Why Why
I do not want revenge, I do not want expiation,
I only want to ask someone
how I was lost,
how I was lost
I am the lost heart of a murderer
who has not yet killed,
who does not yet know he wishes
to kill; who is still the same
as the others
I am looking for him,
he will have answers for me,
he will watch his step, he will be
cautious and violent, my claws
will grow through his hands
and become claws, he will not be caught.
How is it you could have depleted *all* your Atwood file, and still not put up *any* Leonard Cohen?!? Gadzooks! Ya, ya, so everyone thinks of him as a singer… but he started out by writing poetry! I’d recomend ‘The flowers that I left in the ground’ as a personal favorite.
(You can tell a lot about a Canadian by where they stand on the Atwood-to-Cohen scale ;)
Gee whiz! It’s not like I’ve depleted all the Margaret Atwood poems I might ever post! As for Leonard Cohen, my only familiarity with his work has been reading True Love Leaves No Traces at a wedding. I will gladly take your suggestion, and thank you for making it.