“Black Vulture” – Clayton Joe Young – http://www.joeyoungphoto.com
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[poems by Scott Owens, photos by Clayton Joe Young]
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Buzzard
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Always
when you look up
at white clouds, blue sky,
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you see
that hyphen of a bird,
not flying but floating,
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silently
keeping two worlds
you imagine apart, together,
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connecting
earth to sky,
life to death.
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Closer,
we see the hunched neck,
bald head, vulture stoop
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as something that gives us
chills.
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Scott Owens
from An Augury of Birds, forthcoming from Redhawk Publications; poems by Scott Owens, photography by Clayton Joe Young
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The naturalist Robert Lynd is quoted as saying, “In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence.” How often do we actually pause and participate in silence? Become part of it? Sunday afternoon Linda and I had hiked a couple of miles along the Mountains-to-Sea Trail when we came face to face with friends we hadn’t seen since before COVID. They were hiking in from the opposite direction but our destination was the same: the Forest Bathing trail along Grassy Creek.
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We continued on together. We outpaced noisier hikers; they turned back and left us in solitude. The thrum of voices at the winery and of pickups on Route 21 receded. We stopped – a gentle murmur of water flowing over the new beaver dam. Stopped again – breezes swishing through fresh Joe Pye Weed along the creek. As the trail led us up and away from the water, we left the laurel and holly and entered a glade of slender young tuliptree still recovering from logging. Our friend stopped us once more. She had taken off her sandals to feel the earth. Late afternoon sunlight streamed slant among the saplings and we were part of the silence. A vireo sang. She raised her arms and said, “This is what I came here for.”
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If we create silence, within us and around us, air and earth will magnify the silence with beauty. Birds will complete the silence with wing whirr and song. Here’s an invitation to silence, offered to us in the poems and photographs of An Augury of Birds. Scott Owens and Clayton Joe Young reward our held breath and contemplative approach with their avian celebration. They make these feathered creatures our companions – individual, distinctive, ripe with purpose. And Augury is such an apt title. Wasn’t Rachel Carson’s prophecy of a silent spring the spark that ignited our current fire of conservation and environmentalism? Noticing birds is a gateway to noticing the universe. Lift the latch, enter these pages, become part of these lives – If you close your eyes / you can hear the cosmos opening.
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“Northern Mockingbird” – Clayton Joe Young – http://www.joeyoungphoto.com
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All There Is to Say
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If it happens that you find yourself
at the front of a room full of people
listening to all you have to say
about what you think you know
and suddenly you hear
from an open window
you hadn’t even noticed was open
the voice of a mockingbird
as clear as the voice of God
singing in every language at once
you owe it to yourself
and all with the possibility of hearing
to stop in the almost silence
and say out loud, Listen
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Scott Owens
from An Augury of Birds, forthcoming from Redhawk Publications; poems by Scott Owens, photography by Clayton Joe Young
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Hiwassee
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Long fingers of catalpa trees,
Green globes of apples
Hang low over Licklog Road.
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White crowns of Queen Anne’s lace,
Orange umbels of butterfly weed
Fill a field where flycatchers
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Dart from limb to grass
and back, consuming
Whatever rises. Swallows
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Carve endless angles across
The tops of weeds let go.
Brown headed cowbirds
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Follow white-faced cows
Near a lake surrounded
By mountains in a place
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Where everyone waves
And everyone remembers
What it means to live.
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Scott Owens
from An Augury of Birds, forthcoming from Redhawk Publications; poems by Scott Owens, photography by Clayton Joe Young
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An Augury of Birds will be published by Redhawk Press in 2024. Check HERE for ordering information.
Scott Owens enlarges the community of creativity. He is professor of Poetry at Lenoir Rhyne University, former editor of Wild Goose Poetry Review and Southern Poetry Review, and he owns and operates Taste Full Beans Coffeehouse and Gallery where he coordinates innumerable readings and open mics, including POETRY HICKORY.
Clayton Joe Young is the Director and Senior Professor for the Photographic Technology Program at Catawba Valley Community College in Hickory, NC. He has won numerous awards for his photography and has published several books, including other collaborations with Scott Owens and with poet Tim Peeler, featuring rural North Carolina, especially Catawba County.
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“Chickadee” – Clayton Joe Young – http://www.joeyoungphoto.com
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All the Meaningful Noise
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How can you be on this earth
and not close your eyes on occasion
and listen to leaves give voice to wind,
hear the laugh of crow,
annunciation of blue jay,
moan of mourning dove,
all the meaningful noise
of another spring day?
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Behind the finishing plant
just off the run-down road
between failing furniture towns,
a field is bursting with purple flowers.
If you close your eyes
you can hear the cosmos opening.
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Scott Owens
from An Augury of Birds, forthcoming from Redhawk Publications; poems by Scott Owens, photography by Clayton Joe Young
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V E R S E and I M A G E 
Ordering Scott Owens book if I can preorder!! I have Vulture poems in both ESSENTIAL and From Soil and Soul !!
thanks!! JB things change: authors and wizards are not always to be trusted: nobody can explain a dragon. *~Ursula K Le Guin *
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Thanks, Jenny. I don’t believe Redhawk has the book for pre-order yet, but should be soon. All your best friends are in those pages . . . —B
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Thanks, Jenny. It should be available at Redhawk in the next couple of weeks.
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Reminds me of Joy Harjo’s poem, “Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings”. Her lines about “ground rules… whose land is this on which we stand? … Make sure the spirits are respected and treated with good will … Do not parade, pleased with yourself …” It is a call to listen, to humility, to justice. Well worth the read… after all we are not “panthers waiting for prey, we don’t have to behave like predators… we must walk the perimeter side by side, listening. So rich!
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Jane, thanks for visiting. We just returned from a trip to southern Ohio along the river. Every place has its personality, its personhood. Greetings, Earth! Gratitude! —B
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Thanks for the bird immersion. I’ve never seen a mockingbird quite like that!
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Ha, yes, the blustery mocker is taken down a peg by rain. Thanks for visiting! —B
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It’s true. Poetry should have wings.
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To take us to places where we can see with new eyes. –B
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