Owl and Hawk. A Quartet of Poems about Myth and Nature. (Revised)

I first sketched this quartet of poems during the 1970`s.Originally there were several more poems but I discarded certain deeply negative segments and collated two separate sections to create a single work. The time in which these poems were first sketched was a period of conflict and divisive politics. The Vietnam War had only recently fizzled out and the war in Ireland was growing more and more ferocious day by day. These poems reflect that time of uncertainties, uncertainties that I find are now reflected, as in a smokey mirror, by the raw divisive politics rocking both Britain and the United States of America this tragic month of June. These poems are very raw, and much of the writing is in a style that I now no longer wish to emulate, but I do think that they still posses a fierce validity of their own, so I took them out of my bottom drawer, added a line or two here, changed a word or two there, and have set them out in the order in which I think they should be read.          

        Owl and Hawk.

            First Poem.
The Mad Hermit and the Owl.


"The wind of the wing of madness
Last night passed over me".

                   1.

The Owl shadows the dark wood.
The Owl is the essence of night.
A silent hunter haunting the northern wilderness.
A desolate shadow descending through the pines.

                   2.

I cannot sleep when his fierce cries pierce the moonlit forest.
I cannot sleep when his shadow falls across my window.

I cannot walk free, out of the moonlit forest.
I cannot escape the malignity of that shadow.

My darkened window reflects a sudden movement.
I panic and shake when he passes.

His wing beats echoing through the winter stillness
Awake dark fears in the depths of my mind.

                    3.

In folk law the Owl is a bird of evil omen,
A lord of the underworld come to gather souls,
A portent of evil.
When I hear his shrill cries piercing the snow hushed forest
Those ancient legends flower like wounds in my brain.

                      *

            Second Poem.
           Owl in Winter.


Short days.
The cold nights encourage the work of the Owl,
A feral holocaust on the altars of Nature
Accomplished with impartial efficiency
Between the nightly birth and death of the moon.

Cloaked in his straightjacket of wings
The owl sits still and waits.
A precision crafted machine
Primed to perfection,
His keen eyes cutting the dark like razors
Scan the forest for prey.

The wind threads like a ghost between bare trees
Shaking the undergrowth with tiny waves
That expose the darting movements of a vole.
That instant life and death have just one face.

A cry stark as the winter forests
Acts as prologue to the deed of terror.
Quick talons grip and dig.

Wisely the Owl hones silence like a blade,
His iron secret,
A silence that hangs like Arctic water
Knifing toward the snow.
This is the owl in his moon cold fury,
The barb and craft of a dark vocation
His infinite skill.
Only the sunlight can mellow his actions
Moulding his wings around sleep.

                     *

            Third Poem.
               The Kill.


Deep in the moonlit valley
All life is hushed:
Nothing stirs, nothing wakens,
Nothing shakes the tufted grasses,
Only the quiet breathing of the wind.

Like a scalpel a rodent`s cry
Rips open the womb of night.-
Wing beats thrusting upward
Crush the wild sound.

Scratched on the midnight air a living shadow
The young hawk soars
Riding the breath of the wind.-
For a moment the wood is alive
With a hundred thousand voices
Shrieking alarm.

The shadow cuts across
The surgical light of the moon
Then drops far out of sight.
For a moment the danger is passed.

The panic quickly subsides,
Dies into a subdued whisper,

A whisper softer than the tread of a fox.

                    *

           Fourth Poem.
       Summer Solstice.


                    1.

Beauty stuns my eyes.
I stare at the scorched horizon.

                    2.

Retreating out of the dawn world
The old Owl soars,
Rising like the Phoenix
Ascending into her pyre.

Feathers the colour of embers
Blackened by the desolate rain;
His eyes, earth swallowed fires,
Scorn the light of redemption.

In the anguish of a resurrection,
Sought but not understood,
He darts into the sunlight
That dazzles, torments, then stuns him.

The ferocity of the bright sun
Shuts down his laser vision:
Retreating into his dark cave
He embraces the ashes of sleep.

                    3.

The pale morning light enthrals me.
Midsummer bonfires challenge the stars.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
Quartet commenced December 18th. 1972.
Completed in this format, June 19th. - 20th - 21st. 2016.

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Dream Laden Spring. (Completed).

The morning after we celebrated your birthday
the wind turned mild;
pale daffodils rocked like dreaming children
beside the quiet river;
skeletal trees ducked and weaved under white clouds
that drifted silent as swans.
Winter had shuffled off to an early sleep over
on the peaks of far away mountains.

And then, as was usual at this time of year,
intoxicating rumours awoke and quickly flourished
among old travellers crouched around the camp fire,
A cornucopia of wizened Fortune Tellers
who whispered madly into pots and pans.-

The phoenix was seen alive upon a Monday,
she zig zagged on fire through a galaxy of branches.
A unicorn, tamed by a young girl`s whisper,
pranced for an hour in the April snow.
A dog faced boy lay dead in a cot.
A wolf brought shame on a red cloaked virgin,
then gobbled all her cookies up on the spot.
A milch cow cited Homer to the vicar.
A horse gave birth to a brindled cat.

A chicken laid an egg packed with diamonds. 
A cockerel baked the farmer in his coarse linen smock.-
Tall tales clutched to old hearts like rare silver
now that the cold times were almost gone.

But we two, we could not dream, not you and I,
We had known too much sorrow since late December
when the surgeon failed to save our unborn child,
and nearly killed you when he cut too deep.

We remained locked inside your grandad`s Vardo,
curled snug in a ball like new born kittens,
mute in our sorrow, afraid of our grief, but not wanting to die,

stone deaf and blind to the change in the weather.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
First sketched March 10th. 2011. 
Revised September 5th. - 6th. - 9th. - October 21st. 2013.
Completely rewritten June 15th. - August 27th. 2016.

October 17th. 2020.

The many European influences on this poem are very clear, especially the Brothers Grimm; and the Welsh Gypsies referred to in this poem, originated in Rajasthan 1000 years ago. Britain owes a huge amount of it`s culture to the rest of the world. This has never been an island isolated from the Eurasian continent, but has always been a part of the Eurasian mainstream. We are a very European people.