October 2022

The Fall Impression We wanted to see an owl. My brother took me out into the woods behind our house, the smell of pine needles fresh in our noses as we tramped through the undergrowth, the dead leaves as loud as car horns as I stumbled. Finally, we reached the spot where my brother had seen him, the owl. Twisted oak trees stood like sentries, guarding their patch of forest, their boughs laden with dry pine cones and sticky sap. My brother peered intently at the tree, searching for the bird. But he wasn’t there. Disappointment crashed into me. Suddenly we heard a whoosh as a huge shape swooped above us, alighting on one of the enormous trees. The owl! He performed a shuffling dance with his feet and settled onto the branch. He ruffled his feathers, a mottled mix of gray, brown, and white, and folded his wings. I nearly laughed— he looked so funny with his little white mustache perched above the sharp beak and yellow eyes roving around the forest, finally settling on us. He looked down at us as if to say, “Oh, you humans. Watching me again.” The term “wise owl” popped into my head. Now I understood why people call them wise— the owl was rather like an old man full of secrets and knowledge but unwilling to share. My brother pulled me back to reality, handed me his binoculars. I stuck my eyes to the rubber seals and was rewarded with a close-up view of the beautiful bird, his feathers now in sharp detail. I could even see the wrinkles on his fluffy, feathered feet. My legs started to go numb from standing in one place so long but I didn’t care because I was watching the owl. It was almost like we were in an ancient tomb, yellow light spilling through windows cut into brick walls. Then the owl shook his feathers and flew silently off the branch, into the dusky afternoon sky. He was gone.