An Owl's Lament
Moons over midnight and the I’ve lost the sparkled awe.
Eyes sag like overloaded grocery bags, stretched to the point of snapping. Someone help me wrangle any runaway apples.
I used to look upon the illusory and pristine silence of the few hours before the first hint of dawn like the true source of all things magic.
Rev the wonder at one o’clock, tiptoe into two, slip past the sleeping guard at three, and behind door number four — what a mood. And there at five, when the world stirs and starts to wipe the sin from its eyes and your ears prick at the sprinkle of songs sung by those early rising beak-squeakers, gargling their first cup of morning mojo before they’re off to beat the rush to the line that inevitably forms around whoever happens to be dishing the winning worm, you start to see the honor in the hours before the world is awake.
Nowadays my aging disposition just can’t hack it. I no longer have the fortitude to witness the magic melting of midnight into morning. I’m just too fucking tired. I’ve tried, believe me. But, when you can’t tap into that paranormal energy like the graphite ghost you used to be, you start to feel like a costumed wannabe. A two-holed sheet-shaker before a crowd yelling Boooo. It’s just not the same. Obligations of adulthood have left me giving my most seductive bedroom eyes to the pillow twins earlier and earlier these days. I’ll be the dead meat and you two feather-busters be the buns, let the astral angels swallow us whole. I don’t actually have feather-filled pillows, but what a phrase.
I tell myself it’s a loophole. That the earlier I sleep, the earlier I can wake up and still catch the lingering whiffs of wizard dust in the air. That it’s essentially the same as keeping your eyes pried like you used to, only now you have to soak yourself in dream juice first instead of being able to simply focus and slowly liquify into that slippery mysticism at will, but it’s a knockoff and we all know it.
I know I’m lying to myself, but what else can I do as the years tick past and my bedtime eventually sits somewhere on the healthy side of midnight? I shudder at the thought. What am I? Some kind of Mister? Hang me now if you insist on knotting me in a necktie noose. You can’t just keep it loose and pretend everything’s okay. The pressures of the world have forced my nightowl nature and the craving for black blood into some kind of appetite for the helpless and writhing. Easy pickings for the early squirm seekers.
I suppose it’s natural, another cycle of life. Got to make room for the new batch of dark renegades ready to soak up that silent sorcery hiding behind the eyes of a four o’clock freak. There’s only so much to go around, and an old owl can’t expect to keep up with the truly ravenous.
I still glimpse those hours on occasion, but it’s normally accidental. And I always pay for it with a day of semi-functionality. If only the sun wasn’t so equally seductive in its own ancient way, I wouldn’t feel the guilt of sleeping through the day.
I guess it’s time to comb my feathers instead of relishing in the disarray that comes from a night well-wired. I’ll accept it in my own time, as with all aspects of getting older. Can’t be forced to fly with the flock lest I lose all sense of self.
Then again, it’s inevitable to repeat the question hoo-hoo-whoooo am I?
when a night owl reluctantly
becomes an early bird.
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