The Owl’s Complaint

There’s an owl outside, it’s doing my head,

interfering with my peace in bed.

Its questions pierce the midnight air

and slice the silence with despair.

“Who?” it asks, “cut down the trees?

Who cleared the field of birds and bees?

Who burned the nests, the lairs, the sets?

Who thought this devastation best? “

Beneath my duvet, hands on ears,

I try to drown its howling tears

Yet still it cries, in feathered blame,

for woodland lost and meadow maimed

They say, “New houses must be built,

Whatever creatures’ blood is spilled”

Their habitat exchanged for ours

for concrete paths and plastic flowers

I sit up, now foregoing slumber

This owl of conscience has my number.

This banshee of the shadowed night,

an echo of our cursed blight

Perhaps its cries are justice served,

a memory to be preserved

Its haunting song, a dirge now sung

to mourn the sins of all we’ve done.